I got two packages in the mail - a vinyl record and a compact disc. All on the day that Australian music lovers would point their fingers and laugh at my stubborn luddism. Hadn't I heard? Spotify had finally launched Down Under! I could now stream any song I wanted from a pool of over sixteen million tracks filled by virtually all the major labels and independents wanting to fill their own cups with a totally "new" musical model.
As many pundits would have you believe the Spotify "revolution" isn't one at all - it's not the Red Army storming the Winter Palace and declaring peace, bread and land for the people; it's like the bound and gagged family Romanov inexplicably sprouting laser turrets from their heads seeing the ghosts of Cossacks rising from their graves to mercilessly hound Trotsky and his troops back toward the Ukraine. Spotify is a musical counter-revolution aiming to quash the orgiastic "free" producer/consumer-led music rebellion once and for all.
It’s so deliciously evil it beats life back into Monty Burns’ desiccated heart and has him whistling Dixie and calling Mater. (Ahoy-hoy?) Here’s why.
The digital arms race
Ever since the dawn of recorded music, the industry at large has had its eye on one prize. That is, controlling the content, the media and the distribution of both.[1] When gramophone records first appeared it wasn’t uncommon to have the music on vinyl sold in shops that had totally vertical integration (ownership from top to bottom from producer of the content to the point of purchase by the consumer. Case and point: HMV or “His Master’s Voice.”) The Compact Disc was a shift toward higher-fidelity media and lower overall manufacturing costs per unit.
The CD was jointly developed by Sony and Philips in the late-70s, the format gaining acceptance among consumers in the late-80s when an economy of scale was established. Sony and Philips jointly paid for the research & development, marketing and manufacturing of both the Compact Discs and the machines that would play them. Then they could license the technology to other companies. It’s a no brainer – Sony and Philips were (and still are, to some extent!) multinational music labels with vast back catalogues and new talent ready to be pressed to polymer which proves almost pilfer-proof (until the late 1990s, as we all know.)
But what to do! The medium of playback and distribution went spectacularly rogue after a stylized cat roamed around harvesting the innards of beige boxes through squeaky telephone wires in the yawning sunrise of 2000 AD. The pirates, once thought guerillas with nothing better to do than trade tapes around and occasionally burn a CD for a few bucks a pop were now legion, moving torrents (oh I love this water analogy) of (almost!) intangible data across networks without proper authorization from their intellectual property holders. The content was there, like it had been since Tin Pan Alley and even centuries before. But the stranglehold on media and distribution methods had slipped the grasp of the industry virtually overnight. It felt like no amount of speech impeded Danes with expensive lawyers could ever halt their revolutionary advance.
Commodification ala mode and a cup of tea
So what now? Do the record companies under the aegis of RIAA and their cronies hunt down the pirates and strong-arm them back toward their sanctioned tripartite model of music consumption or do they spend more money than they’re prepared to on R&D to create a new medium and a new distribution method? The iTunes model seemed “revolutionary” at the time – you know, telling people to pay for something they could get illegally for free – lest the counter-revolutionary martinets bound in and lay down the(ir) law. “Our content was never yours to begin with and now we’re keeping it,” they bellowed. And lo, Spotify and its ilk emerged.
They own the content. That's a given. The clever rub lies thus: remove the medium and utilize a well known distribution network that has existed in its present broadband form for about fifteen years. They seek to change the concept or perception of content ownership back to an near pre-technological state much like in the age of travelling band shows of yore. Yes, you may hear the music but you can no longer hold it in your hands.
By removing the physical or even the illusion of physicality (files on a hard drive), the medium and the distribution is in a state of simultaneous allness and nothingness; it’s always “on” yet you can never “have” the music. It's "your" song when you choose it - like out of a jukebox - but once the last note decays, so is your claim over it (not that you really had one in the first place). You can “search” the (not your) collection but it’s never “yours” – they’re the gatekeepers and you pay for them to lower the drawbridge. Once inside their opaque vaults, they're able track your playing habits to sell you more of what you already want. Then you're their billboard as they publish every guilty play of Pat Benatar to your friends on Facebook. It’s like the IKEA of promotion – IKEA keep their prices low because they outsource the construction of the product to you. Now Spotify have got you to do their marketing for them, too.
If budding content producers are paid a pitiful commission, more so the better in the eyes of the industry. By melding (or abnegating) the medium, they’ve lowered the price of music and also its value. If Spotify spends the same amount of money paying for the rights to the new Gotye record (quelle horreur) and the entire back catalogue of Darkthrone, per se, then what is the differential of worth between the two? There is none. The only savvy trick the labels can pull is restricting the “supply” of Gotye (or someone just as horrible and popular) but that would distort the market and their profit margins (in this new medium-lite model). Make everything on offer the same (pre-paid) price per click, throw in some ads and the money rolls in regardless. Not much for those who wish to furnish Spotify with music, but big payoffs for those who control mammoth oceans - not paper cups full - of content.
But what really fucking burns my potatoes is that Spotify is the closest thing we have to the real pop music experience. Richard Meltzer in his inquiry/parody of the Aesthetics of Rock posited that rock and pop music is the act of making the mundane interesting and exciting. Shit, if you can make money off it, more so the better.
Spotify is accessible on a desktop computer which you more than likely stare into each day to earn those dollars to pay for, well, Spotify. For the fraction of a second your consciousness wanders toward the sublime tongue of rock and pop in all its tinned ferocity on your shitty laptop speakers, the music industry suits have not only breathed a sigh of relief, their tar-stained cackles can be heard from a blue million miles...
Like I said, it’s pure evil fucking genius.
---
1: Jones, S. Rock Formation: Music, Technology and Mass Communication, Sage Publications: Newbury Park, CA, 1992 p. 185.
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
19.5.12
Interview: Robin Staps of The Ocean (the AU Review)
Ever since Galileo was forced to recant his rather sensible belief that the Earth moved around the Sun by the Italian Inquisition, the burning desire to not whisper, but shout “Eppur si muove” (And yet it moves) in the face of dogmatic fundamentalists has not diminished since the Renaissance – in fact, it’s only intensified. Robin Staps, the “creatively despotic” leader of six member metal collective The Ocean took it upon himself – almost literally – to will the trials of reason against faith to resplendent and complex heavy metal music. Enraptured by the beauty and aggression of the craft, the Ocean have vaulted into the imaginations of discerning metal fans the world over and as Robin reveals, rather prominently in our lofty isle. Touring here almost presently, Robin immerses us under the depths of his proud Ocean.
Read the rest at the AU Review.
Read the rest at the AU Review.
1.5.12
Interview: Steve Hughes - Still Mad, Still Metal, Still Funny (Metal As Fuck)
Steve Hughes hails from parts unknown. Well, that
isn’t entirely true. He holds no real fixed address. If you live on Her
Majesty’s Isle and wait long enough in a local record shop, you might
see him cackling with glee as he discovers a rare Venom record while he winds through on tour.
Read more at Metal As Fuck!
Read more at Metal As Fuck!
11.4.12
Review: Barren Earth - The Devil's Resolve (The Big Issue)
20.3.12
Interview: Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy (the AU Review)
At the turn of the century, traditional heavy metal forged in the
crucibles of Europe had been muscled out of the popular consciousness by
an ostentatiously presented, teenaged television marketing campaign
known to the world at large as nu-metal. Long haired metalheads hurled
their steel cups of mead at speakers in frustration, wondering if the
creative wells of their beloved genre had finally run dry, fingers
crossed in a futile/paranoid gesture hoping bulldozers from MTV
(sponsored by Monster Energy Drink) wouldn’t raze Wacken Open Air three
to four years hence (Or have a band like say, Korn headline, which would
more or less have had the same effect.)
But locked away in Gothenburg’s premier metal recording house Studio Fredman, the phoenix like Arch Enemy was preparing a new album with a new, Germanic recruit standing before the microphone. Oft-criticized vocalist Johan Liiva had departed. Angela Gossow entered. She turned how we had always thought about metal on its head.
Find out how she did it at the AU Review.
But locked away in Gothenburg’s premier metal recording house Studio Fredman, the phoenix like Arch Enemy was preparing a new album with a new, Germanic recruit standing before the microphone. Oft-criticized vocalist Johan Liiva had departed. Angela Gossow entered. She turned how we had always thought about metal on its head.
Find out how she did it at the AU Review.
8.3.12
Live Review: Slipknot w/ Trivium at Rod Laver Arena (Metal as Fuck)
I felt a certain sickly dripping on the end of my nose on Thursday
night. Grey blanketed the skies above. I’d seen about three shows in as
many days, slumber in short supply while working a day job to pay the
bills. Worst of all, my fucking (handsome, charming and ever so
intelligent) editor sent me to review Trivium and god damn Slipknot of all of the bands on the Soundwave tour, scowling in the knowledge that my beloved Paradise Lost was playing their sideshow a mere five minute walk down the road.
Bollocks.
Find out if I actually enjoyed myself or not at Metal as Fuck.
Bollocks.
Find out if I actually enjoyed myself or not at Metal as Fuck.
7.3.12
Live Review: Devin Townsend Project and Meshuggah w/ dredg at the Forum Theatre (Metal as Fuck)
Devin Townsend and his project played unforgettably at the Forum Theatre
on that Thursday night. Meshuggah and dredg on the other
hand...well...funny you mention them...
Stuck in horrendous Melbourne traffic, I missed dredg much to my annoyance. Having been a fan of their Catch Without Arms record, I was relishing the opportunity to see them in an intimate club setting prior to my Soundwave adventure due in a couple of days. Alas, I was just pipped by the line which had snaked its way back behind the dingy alleyway of the Forum Theatre, much in contrast to the classical opulence of its facade and interior (Read more about the decor of the Forum here, if you’re into that sort of thing.) One newbie approached me and asked, “Is this the line for Devin Townsend?” How did the legion of metalheads not give it away? It was either that, or his name emblazoned above the door?
Find out why I forgot all about Meshuggah during their own show at Metal as Fuck.
Stuck in horrendous Melbourne traffic, I missed dredg much to my annoyance. Having been a fan of their Catch Without Arms record, I was relishing the opportunity to see them in an intimate club setting prior to my Soundwave adventure due in a couple of days. Alas, I was just pipped by the line which had snaked its way back behind the dingy alleyway of the Forum Theatre, much in contrast to the classical opulence of its facade and interior (Read more about the decor of the Forum here, if you’re into that sort of thing.) One newbie approached me and asked, “Is this the line for Devin Townsend?” How did the legion of metalheads not give it away? It was either that, or his name emblazoned above the door?
Find out why I forgot all about Meshuggah during their own show at Metal as Fuck.
6.3.12
Live Review: Melbourne Soundwave 2012 (TheVine)
It’s the time when metalheads and punks are vindicated for one week out
of the year - Soundwave Festival. The event, now in its sixth ambitious
year, is most likely the greatest expression of rock music Retromania
that one could ask for. A phrase coined by acclaimed rock journalist
Simon Reynolds (blame him for the term “post-metal”) in his book of the same name, which asks “is popular music addicted to its own past?” The short answer? You bet your arse it is.
The long answer? Read on.
Read the long answer at TheVine.
The long answer? Read on.
Read the long answer at TheVine.
5.3.12
Live Review: Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society and Hellyeah at the Forum Theatre (Metal as Fuck)
It was an all Southern affair in Melbourne as the shred king addressed
his subjects from stately chambers, occupied in the name of the Black
Label Order.
Sultry, rainy, miserable. To the perpetually meteorologically bemused residents of Melbourne, experiencing all four seasons in the space of as many minutes is a given; we see rain, take a piss and by the time our flies are half way done up, it’s sunny once more. Ho hum, pass the butter. After two days of summer, it rained and rained. Fortunately this humid night just lent itself to the atmosphere. With beer in hand as the aroma of cheap cigarettes wafted over me, I felt like I was back in Atlanta, GA hanging out with pre-fabricated good ole boys wearing denim and leather kuttes direct from the merch desk - the real 1%ers were most likely cooling their boiling blood with beer as they planted themselves on the edge of the pit, their arms as thick as oak trunks folded together and just as immovable.
Read the rest at Metal as Fuck.
Sultry, rainy, miserable. To the perpetually meteorologically bemused residents of Melbourne, experiencing all four seasons in the space of as many minutes is a given; we see rain, take a piss and by the time our flies are half way done up, it’s sunny once more. Ho hum, pass the butter. After two days of summer, it rained and rained. Fortunately this humid night just lent itself to the atmosphere. With beer in hand as the aroma of cheap cigarettes wafted over me, I felt like I was back in Atlanta, GA hanging out with pre-fabricated good ole boys wearing denim and leather kuttes direct from the merch desk - the real 1%ers were most likely cooling their boiling blood with beer as they planted themselves on the edge of the pit, their arms as thick as oak trunks folded together and just as immovable.
Read the rest at Metal as Fuck.
8.2.12
Archive Interview: Tomi Koivusaari of Amorphis
Originally printed in Buzz Magazine, May 2009.
---
“I’m chilling at home.”
Wait, I’m sorry, what did Tomi Koivusaari, founding guitarist of progressive doom legends Amorphis and huge rock star say?
“I’m just at home in Finland taking a break before we start on all the summer festivals.”
Yep, the lackadaisical tone in his voice definitely sounded like he wasn’t writing or touring, but this reporter had to remain skeptical. Nevertheless, I forged ahead with my barrage of inquiry into what exactly makes this Finnish powerhouse tick and seemingly, go boom.
Their latest album, Skyforger sounds like an explosion of tender and swirling melodies plucked from the heyday of the 60s and 70s progressive and psychedelic era; touches of mellotrons sweep across soundscapes built on thick, bulging guitars and pulsing, fanciful synths, even more so than their previous efforts. How did they make the album sound so lush and organic?
“Well, I’ll have to have a think about it,” Tomi says, while a deep Finnish hum rumbles around my phone as he ponders. “I guess it’s because of the mixing and the mastering. It doesn’t sound as compressed. So there’s more dynamics and space. You can just hear those small things a little better.
“And there might just be a bit more delay guitar maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just delay guitar. The sounds are just more, like, dynamic. Spacey in a way. We didn’t do any more psychedelic stuff on purpose though.”
And fittingly, the band’s obsession with the Finnish folk tale epic Kalevala isn’t something they set out to re-tell via their music and lyrics, as the music again just evolves naturally.
“I think they’re interesting stories and philosophies, but they aren’t the thing we use to write music with. I think they fit with our music very well because they’re timeless and there’s a lot of emotional stuff [behind it]. But I wouldn’t say that [Amorphis] are the ‘storytellers.’ It’s a very old tale but it gives you a good perspective on today’s life [and culture.]”
Koivusaari, like an concerned parent-to-be, doesn’t enjoy waiting for their new album, Skyforger to be released (which was three weeks away at the time of the interview) because, well, it might just get annoying listening to it.
“I feel very anxious waiting for it to come out. There are a few things we can do before hand like the artwork and promotion but that’s about it really. I wouldn’t say I feel nervous because we are very satisfied with the album. I listened to it about a hundred times during the mastering but I haven’t listened to it since because to your own ear, it might sound like shit.
“Once you get a bit of distance from the recording session you can almost listen to it like an outsider.”
The band have been taken in out of the cold by the mainstream in Finland, with their last two albums, Eclipse and Silent Waters charting rather well, achieving gold status – something that they would never have expected, even in the normally metal-crazed Northern Most Land.
“It’s good; and we can respect that happening in a different way than from say, when we were twenty years old. It feels good, but it wasn’t our goal or anything like that. Its funny because ten years ago things were a little bit different with us in Finland.”
How does he figure?
“Well,” he continues, “after [our current singer,] Tomi [Joutsen] joined it’s given us so much more energy and [a bigger] audience in Finland as well.”
I ask if it was due to the surge of popularity of Lordi after they won the Eurovision Song Contest; but in Finland, heavy metal is the pop music over there, outstripping sales of rock and other genres by a significant degree.
“It’s always been like that. It’s unbelievable how big it is in Finland. Lordi went to Eurovision because metal was already big in Finland. But them [winning] has nothing to do with it, actually.
But as for bands like [symphonic metal band] Nightwish, their sales have been amazing. They sold something like 100,000 albums which is in the top five biggest selling albums in Finland.
“It’s amazing, knowing that little kids and grandmothers are listening to it. People were ashamed that Lordi was making fun of the Finnish people, but after they won [Eurovision] everyone was like ‘Yeah, Lordi!”
And of course, here’s the fun part of the interview where all Amorphis’ Australian fans get the news they’ve all been waiting for:
“We’re coming down at the end of the year,” he proudly tells me. But is it a sure thing, amidst swine flu, GFC and other terrors?
“Yes, of course. There should be two shows in Australia. It should be good to be there.”
---
“I’m chilling at home.”
Wait, I’m sorry, what did Tomi Koivusaari, founding guitarist of progressive doom legends Amorphis and huge rock star say?
“I’m just at home in Finland taking a break before we start on all the summer festivals.”
Yep, the lackadaisical tone in his voice definitely sounded like he wasn’t writing or touring, but this reporter had to remain skeptical. Nevertheless, I forged ahead with my barrage of inquiry into what exactly makes this Finnish powerhouse tick and seemingly, go boom.
Their latest album, Skyforger sounds like an explosion of tender and swirling melodies plucked from the heyday of the 60s and 70s progressive and psychedelic era; touches of mellotrons sweep across soundscapes built on thick, bulging guitars and pulsing, fanciful synths, even more so than their previous efforts. How did they make the album sound so lush and organic?
“Well, I’ll have to have a think about it,” Tomi says, while a deep Finnish hum rumbles around my phone as he ponders. “I guess it’s because of the mixing and the mastering. It doesn’t sound as compressed. So there’s more dynamics and space. You can just hear those small things a little better.
“And there might just be a bit more delay guitar maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just delay guitar. The sounds are just more, like, dynamic. Spacey in a way. We didn’t do any more psychedelic stuff on purpose though.”
And fittingly, the band’s obsession with the Finnish folk tale epic Kalevala isn’t something they set out to re-tell via their music and lyrics, as the music again just evolves naturally.
“I think they’re interesting stories and philosophies, but they aren’t the thing we use to write music with. I think they fit with our music very well because they’re timeless and there’s a lot of emotional stuff [behind it]. But I wouldn’t say that [Amorphis] are the ‘storytellers.’ It’s a very old tale but it gives you a good perspective on today’s life [and culture.]”
Koivusaari, like an concerned parent-to-be, doesn’t enjoy waiting for their new album, Skyforger to be released (which was three weeks away at the time of the interview) because, well, it might just get annoying listening to it.
“I feel very anxious waiting for it to come out. There are a few things we can do before hand like the artwork and promotion but that’s about it really. I wouldn’t say I feel nervous because we are very satisfied with the album. I listened to it about a hundred times during the mastering but I haven’t listened to it since because to your own ear, it might sound like shit.
“Once you get a bit of distance from the recording session you can almost listen to it like an outsider.”
The band have been taken in out of the cold by the mainstream in Finland, with their last two albums, Eclipse and Silent Waters charting rather well, achieving gold status – something that they would never have expected, even in the normally metal-crazed Northern Most Land.
“It’s good; and we can respect that happening in a different way than from say, when we were twenty years old. It feels good, but it wasn’t our goal or anything like that. Its funny because ten years ago things were a little bit different with us in Finland.”
How does he figure?
“Well,” he continues, “after [our current singer,] Tomi [Joutsen] joined it’s given us so much more energy and [a bigger] audience in Finland as well.”
I ask if it was due to the surge of popularity of Lordi after they won the Eurovision Song Contest; but in Finland, heavy metal is the pop music over there, outstripping sales of rock and other genres by a significant degree.
“It’s always been like that. It’s unbelievable how big it is in Finland. Lordi went to Eurovision because metal was already big in Finland. But them [winning] has nothing to do with it, actually.
But as for bands like [symphonic metal band] Nightwish, their sales have been amazing. They sold something like 100,000 albums which is in the top five biggest selling albums in Finland.
“It’s amazing, knowing that little kids and grandmothers are listening to it. People were ashamed that Lordi was making fun of the Finnish people, but after they won [Eurovision] everyone was like ‘Yeah, Lordi!”
And of course, here’s the fun part of the interview where all Amorphis’ Australian fans get the news they’ve all been waiting for:
“We’re coming down at the end of the year,” he proudly tells me. But is it a sure thing, amidst swine flu, GFC and other terrors?
“Yes, of course. There should be two shows in Australia. It should be good to be there.”
5.2.12
Interview: Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost (the AU Review)
Nick Holmes, the stalwart gothic metal pioneer is a
right ‘gobby’ bloke (for someone who's boring after three pints of
lager, as described in his own self-deprecating Twitter bio) – it’s a
requisite for the job as singer in the morose doom metal outfit Paradise Lost.
In the early 1990s in Yorkshire, Paradise Lost seemingly channeled the
lament of long-haired youth who were witnessing their metal greats
blundering about aimlessly as grunge invaded the popular consciousness.
In comparison, grunge’s flirtation with despondency was piecemeal in
comparison to the UK doom scene’s dyed-in-the-wool, consummate romance
with bleakness and sorrow.
Read the complete interview at the AU Review.
Read the complete interview at the AU Review.
30.1.12
Review: Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light (Metal as Fuck)
There’s a particular twinge of grief that threads itself through this record – of course, the untimely passing of David Gold was as saddening as it was sudden. As he mournfully and sonorously rattled off his desperate words, screaming “Only death is real!” one’s eyes feel pregnant with tears and almost nothing can stem the flow. The heinous crime the Earth has committed in prematurely claiming our dark dreamer only serves to intensify this monochromatic vista of doom metal, like a portrait washed in rivers of hatred and modern bile, dripping with venomous, jarring guitar lines.
Read the review over at Metal as Fuck.
18.1.12
Podcast: The "Lost" Devin Townsend Interview
The long lost interview has finally been found! Conducted in Feburary 2012 for Metal As Fuck, it was once thought perished in the rusty innards of a fried HDD, this interview with the incredible Devin Townsend turned up in the most unlikeliest of places much to my surprise and delight. So here's my gift to you - a rare, earnest insight into the always entertaining and thought-provoking mind of Heavy Devy!
Listen to it in full on SoundCloud.
17.1.12
Article: Migrant Metal (The Big Issue)
Watching a heavy metal show as an outsider is like walking into a psychotic circus that’s as bizarre as it is fun. Confronting by nature, metal is defined by its hulking, “louder than hell” guitar driven sound, occult or satanic imagery as worn by bands and their fans with a cult like devotion to the scene and its craft. Bands run the gamut from cool-headed, wispy-haired heavy rockers to leather clad black metal fanatics, brandishing fake axes, their faces greased up in white “corpsepaint.” Some frontmen (and women) growl, some sneer and some sing to ear-shattering, herniated heights.
Read the rest in The Big Issue (#398) on sale from vendors across the nation - buy a copy to help the homeless and long-term unemployed.
4.1.12
Interview: Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society (the AU Review)
Sporting a bedraggled beard and fierce axe to stir the envy of Odin and his mighty sons, Zakk Wylde and his Black Label Society
have knocked the paisley-mellow orthodoxy of metal virtuoso guitar on
its ass; breathing nothing but fire and spittle while shredding up
storms of fury throughout his colorful career. Mastering his craft since
the age of fourteen, Wylde drops recondite phrases into his
genre-spanning career just for kicks as enraptured, raw-throated crowds
cheer on. Jetting into Australia for Soundwave, the confidante and
doom-driven acolyte of Ozzy Osbourne shoots straight from the hip laying
down some real talk for y’all about spirituality, strange times and the
Shatner. You’d expect nothing less from the fearless leader of the
famed Black Label Order, leading the wounded cult of rock n’ roll back
into the darkness.
Read more at the AU Review.
Read more at the AU Review.
18.12.11
The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #1
Hauled over the shoulders of a dark priest, we're carried off in the moonlight to a cathedral of magick and ritual, overseen by the minions of Satan himself...
#1
Ghost - Opus Eponymous
Ghost are like their namesake. They dress in Emerald robes fashioned by Satanic brotherhoods. The silences in between their notes are haunted by an all-consuming darkness all their own. The band are like a dark cabal seething timeless doom and chilling, merciless melody; their "self-titled" record a triumph of occult practicing, retro loving dark rock masters. It’s not like they’ve rummaged though boxes of dusty Nazareth or Free records from the 70s and purloined riffs in the vain hope no-one will notice (thanks for nothing, Opeth); Opus sounds like a fresh, new record; not some kind of hackneyed early 70s hand-me-down. Harder still is to imagine that their hymns like Satan Prayer are tongue-in-cheek homage to scheming cartoon devils, when they (and who really knows who they are – their identities are shrouded in complete secrecy) chant “Hear our Satan Prayer/ anti-Nicene creed” over simple martial beats of drum and shuddering bass, their tunes burrow themselves into our minds so effortlessly.
Like brothers in arms they invoke the insidious Mercyful Fate spirit in Elizabeth, our gloried gossamer-throated vocalist's (who?!!) herniated cries to the long departed Ms. Bathory as devotional as it will ever sound. They don’t even care for convention, especially on the pulsating Ritual; the band joins in harmony to finish the chorus, yet they loathe even waiting to start the first line of verse – but it works so damn well it’s impossible to fault them; especially that confident, fluid bluesy soloing to close the track out.
Though completely out of place, the genuinely beautiful closer Genesis is packed full of freewheeling synthesizer and acoustic flourishes, like looking through a prog rock glass darkly. Black metal has engorged and exhausted itself on providing listeners with “maximum Satan” through faster blast beats, more pompous lyrical posturing and a pleading insistence that their work is art, dammit, art! If you hear their cover of the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun, it’s worth the price of admission alone. Ghost have reworked it into a black mass hymn abounding with organ hits and phaser-driven guitars marching at a funereal pace, grandly building as a chorus of ghouls harmoniously sing those immortal words; “Sun, sun, sun, here we come,” submerging them in inky blackness. Proceedings end with an abrupt halt as their gargantuan organ reverberates to a thunderous close.
Though completely out of place, the genuinely beautiful closer Genesis is packed full of freewheeling synthesizer and acoustic flourishes, like looking through a prog rock glass darkly. Black metal has engorged and exhausted itself on providing listeners with “maximum Satan” through faster blast beats, more pompous lyrical posturing and a pleading insistence that their work is art, dammit, art! If you hear their cover of the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun, it’s worth the price of admission alone. Ghost have reworked it into a black mass hymn abounding with organ hits and phaser-driven guitars marching at a funereal pace, grandly building as a chorus of ghouls harmoniously sing those immortal words; “Sun, sun, sun, here we come,” submerging them in inky blackness. Proceedings end with an abrupt halt as their gargantuan organ reverberates to a thunderous close.
The irony aside, Ghost eschews all that pretentious bullshit that’s accumulated and ossified the black metal scene; Ghost have unleashed a truly remarkable debut metal record upon this cruel world. The black gauntlet has been thrown, the torch bared, the keepers of which are true heirs of the cult of metal. All hail, Ghost!
---
Gold Award: Amorphis - The Beginning of Times
Silver Award: Within Temptation - The Unforgiving
Bronze Award: Anthrax - Worship Music
Silver Award: Within Temptation - The Unforgiving
Bronze Award: Anthrax - Worship Music
15.12.11
The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #2
Crawling bloodied and broken from the Inside Room, we crumple our indivisible selves on the floor of a frost-scented forest, marking time, waiting for death...
#2
Insomnium - One For Sorrow
When Insomnium release a record, there’s a sudden rush of anticipation to get it in the mail (Yes, friends, I buy music.) the days pass achingly until you’re able to slip it into the CD tray (or vinyl platter, as I prefer.) One For Sorrow is like taking a hard look at yourself in the mirror as thunder crackles in your mind while watching your tears falling like rain. It’s like pent up rage tearing apart its fetters and bounding through your heart. With each urgent minute, there's a momentary release into freedom to remind yourself you’re trapped. Gloomy, despondent, heavy stuff from these criminally underrated Finns, outpacing and outplaying their seemingly dozing Swedish progenitors.
Though post-rock and shoegaze are the de rigeur styles of late, they lovingly furnish their palatial tracks with gilded slivers of grandeur, unwilling to sacrifice their wild streaks of old, a fierce exemplar in Every Hour Wounds. Harrowing gangs of mourners howl on Through the Shadows and the Song of the Blackbird lacerate like searing blades running thick with blood in an effort to revive a moribund elan vivre – this album has nary a skerrick of hope folded into its miasma of grey but their melodies sound defiant, graceful, and beautiful, save to mention their dark Romantic lyricism vaulting the record's raw, sorrowful element to a natural perigee on the string-filled self-titled closer.
Though post-rock and shoegaze are the de rigeur styles of late, they lovingly furnish their palatial tracks with gilded slivers of grandeur, unwilling to sacrifice their wild streaks of old, a fierce exemplar in Every Hour Wounds. Harrowing gangs of mourners howl on Through the Shadows and the Song of the Blackbird lacerate like searing blades running thick with blood in an effort to revive a moribund elan vivre – this album has nary a skerrick of hope folded into its miasma of grey but their melodies sound defiant, graceful, and beautiful, save to mention their dark Romantic lyricism vaulting the record's raw, sorrowful element to a natural perigee on the string-filled self-titled closer.
Workmanlike production lends tracks like Only One Who Waits imparts a calloused, bruising character, pleasing to hear amid the din of a thousand producers hollowing out the souls of their records to sound “more digital than anything else.” Though their last three albums were exquisite in their own right, the simplistic tag of “In Flames meets Children of Bodom on Opeth pills” ought to be consigned to metal history. A mature effort, it’s unashamedly and unforgettably a work of Insomnium’s stellar brand; an opus of elegant desperation.
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The Top 10 of 2011
14.12.11
The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #3
Making our way back to shore, we check into a lowly watering hole to soak ourselves in booze, washing away the pain from The Inside Room...
I haven’t felt this way in such a long time about a record – an unsated, mournful feeling that bubbles up from some hitherto undiscovered fissure in the depths of my heart. Probing further, one can discover the frail, weak pulse that occupies “the inside room.” Its bleak doom metal in the absolute sense of the term; there’s only melancholy and monochrome to be heard and felt on this record although it’s so heart-rending it’s almost impossible to feel moved by it. Patrick Walker’s (ex-Warning) passionate, despondent and soul-rattling voice strides effortlessly over the minimalistic yet ocean-sized riffs, each player in lock-step with one another, communicating an avalanching, existential malaise that seems to stand in solidarity with anyone who has shed a tear in anguish or has lost something so precious to them. To feel so utterly lost in and arrested by a piece of music without once suspending one’s disbelief – not even for a second - is rare; The Inside Room is one of those once in a decade records. Perhaps these inhumanly talented upstarts 40 Watt Sun are one of those once in a decade bands, too. What’s more incredible is the thought of it having been recorded over three tireless days and nights – a mere seventy two hours! Hauntingly beautiful, like a living reminder that we are somehow incomplete and for that, we must despair.
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#3
40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
I haven’t felt this way in such a long time about a record – an unsated, mournful feeling that bubbles up from some hitherto undiscovered fissure in the depths of my heart. Probing further, one can discover the frail, weak pulse that occupies “the inside room.” Its bleak doom metal in the absolute sense of the term; there’s only melancholy and monochrome to be heard and felt on this record although it’s so heart-rending it’s almost impossible to feel moved by it. Patrick Walker’s (ex-Warning) passionate, despondent and soul-rattling voice strides effortlessly over the minimalistic yet ocean-sized riffs, each player in lock-step with one another, communicating an avalanching, existential malaise that seems to stand in solidarity with anyone who has shed a tear in anguish or has lost something so precious to them. To feel so utterly lost in and arrested by a piece of music without once suspending one’s disbelief – not even for a second - is rare; The Inside Room is one of those once in a decade records. Perhaps these inhumanly talented upstarts 40 Watt Sun are one of those once in a decade bands, too. What’s more incredible is the thought of it having been recorded over three tireless days and nights – a mere seventy two hours! Hauntingly beautiful, like a living reminder that we are somehow incomplete and for that, we must despair.
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The Top 10 of 2011
13.12.11
The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #4
The atoms from the discarded cheeseburger recombine to create a snarling metal beast rising from the waters off the cape of Jutland...
Mercenary were every bit Danish metal royalty – every record since the groundbreaking 11 Dreams was hyped as a major event in melodic death metal and with solid reason. Since the Sandager brothers’ departure, only the two original guitarists remain. Now, with a bit more breathing room to relax and let their riffs loose from leashes gripped tightly by their former bandmates, Mercenary have stepped back from their unyielding desire to emulate the fleeting glory days of Euro progressive metal (that’s the late 90s) and fusing the heady intensity of the original Gothenburg sound (the precious little mid-90s) to thrash out a record brimming with prime lead breaks, jaw-dropping solos and carnivorous, cracking riffs. They strut with a fearless command of those big, American style arena-electrifying refrains from the very beginning, (Through the Eyes of the Devil) grind relentlessly and parenthetically pound polyrhythms with subtlety and aplomb (In A River of Madness) as honey-coated keyboard accompaniments shine through better than any of their contemporaries (ahem, Scar Symmetry).
Rene Pedersen's stepping up to the microphone to lay down toweringly clean and muscular death vocals is possibly one of the greatest personnel decisions in melodic death metal history. Impassioned throughout, he sounds none more sincere than on Memoria. Pained and ardent cries to his parents had me completely floored, easily making this vocal driven track the best on the record. In Bloodred Shades hides nothing from us; trammeling, crunching riffs dominate no sooner to halt and yield to splendorous progressive inspired passages before twisting and turning back again, keeping us on tenterhooks as we can only feel awed at what they come up with next upon each and every listen.
Songwriting that treads the line between velvety Euro cheese and angsty American teenage posturing yet succumbing to the trappings of neither culminates perfectly on Shades of Gray, cloud-like synth anchoring an “ahhhing” choir while the rhythm section thickly lay chugging riffs down would sound completely stupid if it were cut by almost anyone else, but Mercenary make it work perfectly (principally the stock 80s key change on the bridge: “oohing” in tandem with faux-poetic lyricism: “From the beauty of a single rose / To the night's clear sky / Don't let it pass you by”) eventually wiping away the “somfing wot got in my eye” in the grinder On the Edge of Sanity. Coming out swinging (of the Glenn Miller variety, natch) in the closer The Black Brigade, we must ask: is Metamorphosis metal for the 2010s, the de-spoiler of the metalcore generation? I would be inclined to say it is.
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#4
Mercenary - Metamorphosis
Mercenary were every bit Danish metal royalty – every record since the groundbreaking 11 Dreams was hyped as a major event in melodic death metal and with solid reason. Since the Sandager brothers’ departure, only the two original guitarists remain. Now, with a bit more breathing room to relax and let their riffs loose from leashes gripped tightly by their former bandmates, Mercenary have stepped back from their unyielding desire to emulate the fleeting glory days of Euro progressive metal (that’s the late 90s) and fusing the heady intensity of the original Gothenburg sound (the precious little mid-90s) to thrash out a record brimming with prime lead breaks, jaw-dropping solos and carnivorous, cracking riffs. They strut with a fearless command of those big, American style arena-electrifying refrains from the very beginning, (Through the Eyes of the Devil) grind relentlessly and parenthetically pound polyrhythms with subtlety and aplomb (In A River of Madness) as honey-coated keyboard accompaniments shine through better than any of their contemporaries (ahem, Scar Symmetry).
Rene Pedersen's stepping up to the microphone to lay down toweringly clean and muscular death vocals is possibly one of the greatest personnel decisions in melodic death metal history. Impassioned throughout, he sounds none more sincere than on Memoria. Pained and ardent cries to his parents had me completely floored, easily making this vocal driven track the best on the record. In Bloodred Shades hides nothing from us; trammeling, crunching riffs dominate no sooner to halt and yield to splendorous progressive inspired passages before twisting and turning back again, keeping us on tenterhooks as we can only feel awed at what they come up with next upon each and every listen.
Songwriting that treads the line between velvety Euro cheese and angsty American teenage posturing yet succumbing to the trappings of neither culminates perfectly on Shades of Gray, cloud-like synth anchoring an “ahhhing” choir while the rhythm section thickly lay chugging riffs down would sound completely stupid if it were cut by almost anyone else, but Mercenary make it work perfectly (principally the stock 80s key change on the bridge: “oohing” in tandem with faux-poetic lyricism: “From the beauty of a single rose / To the night's clear sky / Don't let it pass you by”) eventually wiping away the “somfing wot got in my eye” in the grinder On the Edge of Sanity. Coming out swinging (of the Glenn Miller variety, natch) in the closer The Black Brigade, we must ask: is Metamorphosis metal for the 2010s, the de-spoiler of the metalcore generation? I would be inclined to say it is.
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The Top 10 of 2011
12.12.11
The Top 10 Metal of 2011 - #5
Escaping from the waiting jowls of the Hunter, we hear the sounds of a demented funfair lilting on the summer night air, only to discover greasy cheeseburgers unravelling before our very eyes...
#5
Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
Oh, the fate of the universe revealed if not for the want of a cheeseburger. Deranged and manic as ever, Devin Townsend and his talented passengers bound about like children hopped up on pixie sticks and red cordial, launching us into the nether region of “fractal space” (I’m sure it’s something Devy would say) and beyond. Even the comedown is tinted with psychedelic hues couched in layers upon layers of wondrous melody and harmony. His unhinged style is a work of patience, since we have to make do with over ten minutes of Devy gently painting scenery before tucking into some real “Hevy Devy” action; the chorus in Stand, riffs in the crushing Planet of the Apes feature a show-stopping, ethereal vocal performance from Devy’s only possible peer, Paul Masvidal (Cynic, Gordian Knot, et al.)
Punishingly ebullient is probably the best description of Devin Townsend’s music on Deconstruction. His ridiculous plots and playful, carnivalesque leitmotifs (The Mighty Masturbator the case and point) only serve to reinforce his incalculable depth of creativity and technical inventiveness. Deconstruction seems to unmask his usually veiled abstract expressionism; his inimitable yearning cries appealing to lost love, the oneness of the universe and a never ending search for some kind of higher power to make sense of the mind he’s been given and the body he inhabits feel more intense and prominent than earlier works, especially during the infinitely faceted Sumeria.
There's no more compartmentalizing himself between his solo, "Band" and Strapping Young Lad "divisions;" it's the man, Devin Townsend, complete and on unashamed display. He’s like the Philip K. Dick of metal; not only in the sense his content walks drunkenly astride insanity and genius – Devy is consistent in quality, prodigious in quantity and possibly more off-kilter than both he and his fans would care to admit. Deconstruction only reinforces his unassailable reputation as the undisputed king of progressive metal.
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