So yeah...some people who don't get linked to my blog from the Facebook page might be wondering why I've been so quiet over the last few weeks after having pretty much consistently managed to maintain a schedule of at least one post a week for the previous few months.
Well, in all honesty, it's because I've been having a lot of offline issues that have been cutting into my time and sapping my willingness to write reviews and articles, along with now having a local radio show (which is broadcasting in about six and a half hours, at the time of writing) that has divided my attention a bit and now being a contributor (if probably the quietest contributor of all time) on a metal site. I won't go into the details about my offline stuff, as you probably don't need to know them, but, to make a long story short, these issues have just made things really tough to get fired up to write stuff, which means I've pretty much been stuck with writer's block for the last few weeks. Now, I DO have two finished reviews which I could post (and fully intend to do so once I've got them proofread) and I'm currently working on my debut review as a contributor for the site I mentioned (specifically, for the album Eternal Battle by Avenguard: this is not one I was assigned to do, this is one I'm doing for myself), but another issue that's hit recently is the fact that the laptop I write most of my reviews on and which contains all of the music I want to review is now nearly full up with the memory, which also means that I can't do VLOG reviews like I was wanting to do (since it's not my laptop, but my mum's, deleting stuff off of the laptop isn't something I can do: even when I deleted literally every file I've put on the laptop, I still couldn't export the video out to youtube!), which has also set back my enthusiasm a bit.
So yeah...I basically keep hitting roadblocks that have been setting me back.
Luckily, there's a silver lining to all of this: the issues, for the most part, are sorting themselves out at the minute and the radio show has given me a valid reason to get out of the house more. I also have recently received a film which is quite literally so bad that I've been fired up to review it. The only downside is that I now don't want to watch it again to continue reviewing it!
I will stress, I have NOT given up work on this blog! I do fully intend to get back into this when I can (the sheer number of unfinished reviews I've got in my unpublished section just from the last few weeks alone could attest to that), but, at the moment, everything else is just stopping me from doing this. When I do get fired up again, though, you can bet that I'll be back for good!
Thanks to everyone for their patience and I hope you can understand why I've not been posting new stuff for a while now!
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Thursday, 10 July 2014
Kiss "Monster" Review
Maybe it's because I first listened to Kiss when it was too late for me to really click with them, but Kiss has never been on of those bands I've had more than a passing interest in. For me, their theatrics are overblown and they've never released a strong enough album for me to get why they have the degree of love that they do. That's not to say that I think they are a terrible band, but I just don't get the appeal behind them. If I want to see a band combine theatrics with hard rock music, I'll stick with Alice Cooper, thanks!
So, from that, you've probably guessed what my stance on this album is: I don't like it. Well...yes and no. There are several things about this album that I don't like, but there's some stuff on it that I can't help enjoying!
I would give you the history of Kiss, but...really, you'd have to have lived a VERY sheltered life to have not heard of the band. What you might NOT be aware is that Kiss was not actually the band's first name! They originally formed in 1970 under the name Rainbow before changing their name in 1971 to Wicked Lester after learning another band was around with that name (this was NOT the same Rainbow that had Richie Blackmoore as a member of the band, which formed in 1975, by the way). They recorded an album that was never released and, due to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley deciding that the problem with the album was the lack of a singular image and musical vision, they decided to start a new band. By 1973, Wicked Lester was no more...and Kiss had been formed from their ashes!
Anyway, rather than bore you to death with Kiss' history, I'm going to skip to the actual album review. While I might be glossing over A LOT of history (the band released their first album in February 1974, so they have about 41 and a half years worth of history to talk about), the important bit to remember is that this is their 20th album, so I doubt the words of one grumpy git on the internet is going to affect the career of the guys much! They've made their millions, they're a highly respected band, their impact is massive...you see the point I'm making, I'm sure!
So, with all of that said, let's look at the cover art for this album. And, honestly, I think the album would have been better had the album only had the band's name and the album's name on it. With the actual band members on the front, it makes the cover seem a tad crowded, like they're trying remind us that yes, this is a Kiss album. Not that you would have missed it from their iconic logo, but, to be fair, doing this PROBABLY would have resulted in an album cover that would have looked a bit too much like the cover for their 1992 album Revenge, so...yeah, my complaint would probably have caused another one had the band corrected it in the way I think would have made the cover better!
So, from that, you've probably guessed what my stance on this album is: I don't like it. Well...yes and no. There are several things about this album that I don't like, but there's some stuff on it that I can't help enjoying!
I would give you the history of Kiss, but...really, you'd have to have lived a VERY sheltered life to have not heard of the band. What you might NOT be aware is that Kiss was not actually the band's first name! They originally formed in 1970 under the name Rainbow before changing their name in 1971 to Wicked Lester after learning another band was around with that name (this was NOT the same Rainbow that had Richie Blackmoore as a member of the band, which formed in 1975, by the way). They recorded an album that was never released and, due to Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley deciding that the problem with the album was the lack of a singular image and musical vision, they decided to start a new band. By 1973, Wicked Lester was no more...and Kiss had been formed from their ashes!
Anyway, rather than bore you to death with Kiss' history, I'm going to skip to the actual album review. While I might be glossing over A LOT of history (the band released their first album in February 1974, so they have about 41 and a half years worth of history to talk about), the important bit to remember is that this is their 20th album, so I doubt the words of one grumpy git on the internet is going to affect the career of the guys much! They've made their millions, they're a highly respected band, their impact is massive...you see the point I'm making, I'm sure!
So, with all of that said, let's look at the cover art for this album. And, honestly, I think the album would have been better had the album only had the band's name and the album's name on it. With the actual band members on the front, it makes the cover seem a tad crowded, like they're trying remind us that yes, this is a Kiss album. Not that you would have missed it from their iconic logo, but, to be fair, doing this PROBABLY would have resulted in an album cover that would have looked a bit too much like the cover for their 1992 album Revenge, so...yeah, my complaint would probably have caused another one had the band corrected it in the way I think would have made the cover better!
Anyway, let's move to the actual music on the album!
The first problem that comes to mind is the mastering. I know I normally save this kind of thing for the end of reviews, but it's such a serious case of this issue ruining a good mix that I have to bring this up now: it's too fucking loud! There's a difference between a powerful mastering job that enhances the music and just a wall of sound that's a chore to listen to, and you get no prize for guessing which applies here! You could say that's what the band were going for, considering one of the songs on here is called "Wall Of Sound", but I refuse to accept that Kiss would master an album this loudly just because they want to suit a song title! Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell was not mastered to a ridiculous extent, and it had a song titled "Everything Louder Than Everything Else"! Granted, it was released in 1993, when this kind of practice wasn't especially common, but I think the point still stands: just because you're playing rock music doesn't mean you HAVE to master it as loudly as you can, as a well produced album in general (which includes a restrained mastering job) will be more enjoyable to listen to, won't cause ear fatigue and will actually make people WANT to turn it up to appreciate the subtleties in the music that are usually impossible to appreciate when the mastering is so loud that you'd deafen yourself playing the album at full volume! The thing that really boils my blood is that, while I think the bass is too loudly mixed (yes, I'm saying someone made the bass too LOUD in a review. Let that sink in, people...), it's otherwise very well mixed.
Anyway, now THAT'S out of the way, now to the band's music!
The best way to sum up Kiss' music, for the benefit of those who haven't heard a single Kiss song before now, is basically hard rock with a couple of hints that point towards influence from glam rock and rock n roll. On paper, this is a combination I'd be drooling over (three of my favourite styles of rock music in one convenient package? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!), but the problem is that consistency has never been something that I feel Kiss has managed to pull off on any of their albums I've listened to. Sure, you get your famous hits like "Detroit Rock City", "Crazy Nights" and "I Was Made For Loving You", but, when you actually listen to their albums, there's a distressing amount of songs that, outside of the obvious hit songs, seem to go in one ear and out of the other. This problem is in abundance on this album: once you get past the obvious hit of "Hell Or Hallelujah", there's very few songs that really reach the heights that song set...and that's a bad sign, considering "Hell Or Hallelujah" isn't exactly a great song when you give it a critical look at. "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" is very solid (and also features some good vocals from drummer Eric Singer...you may make the obvious joke about him being in the wrong role in this band if you wish!) and, despite the lyrics making me wondering whether the concept of subtlety has faded from Kiss' vocabulary when writing songs, I can't help enjoying "Take Me Down Below", but apart from that? Not a lot really stands out, although, to be honest, I usually am so bored by the time it gets to "Back To The Stone Age" (or track 4 on the album...OUT OF 12!) that it's possible that I've missed some good songs! It does briefly recover near the end of the album with "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" and "Take Me Down Below", but, by that point, it's not really enough to stop me from wondering where I put my coffee mug.
Vocally, Paul Stanley still sounds like Paul Stanley, which is quite impressive when you consider that he was 59 when he recorded all of his vocals on this album and how long Kiss have been going, but Gene Simmons...well, he's not unlistenable by any stretch of the imagination, but his voice is definitely not the impressive voice that made "God Of Thunder" so impressive any more. Bear in mind, this is a studio recording, so they're going to have taken time to make sure everybody sounded the best they could...and he still sounds like a shadow of his old self. This isn't mean he's bad by any measure, but I tend to skip any song he has lead vocals on due to it being rather dull, so he's clearly not capable of giving me a reason to care about the song from his vocal performance on them. Eric Singer's vocals on "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll" (the only lead vocal song with Singer on vocals on this album) are fairly good! I wouldn't say he strikes me as an especially confident singer and he certainly isn't up to the standards of Paul Stanley, but he's capable of carrying a tune very well. I wouldn't want to hear him singing lead vocals in a band situation, as I don't think he'd be a strong enough singer to do that well, but he does a good enough job here that I can understand why he got the job of drumming for Kiss (which also requires him to doing backing vocals, before people start to wonder why I'm praising his drumming in that sentence). Thayer (who only sings lead on "Outta This World") strikes me as basically a lower voiced version of Paul Stanley, with a bit of Gene's lower voice thrown in. I'd honestly not have a problem with hearing him singing lead in his own band if he had one, as he's actually pretty good and it's a bit of a shame that he's under-appreciated on this album in terms of providing lead vocals!
Instrumentally, I can't help noticing that Kiss have slowed down the tempo a bit on this album. Now, I get that Gene and Paul are in their 60's now and they weren't exactly playing especially quickly to start with (they weren't playing thrash metal, if you see my point), but this slowing down strikes me as a case of them not being able to play as fast as they'd like to any more, not a decision made to improve the music. A few of these songs honestly would have benefitted from a bit more speed, as they feel like they're a bit too restrained compared to what they should have been. For the most part, the album feels like it's lacking that little thing to kick it to the next level, with the end result that the album feels a bit too safe and also sounds a bit dull. I guess I can't complain too much about this, as Kiss have never been a band who has successfully experimented with their sound beyond a few albums like Revenge, but I kind of have to bring it up due to it being an issue that's going to make or break this album for those of you who haven't liked Kiss' music to start with: if you're half expecting them to try something new, you're sadly mistaken.
Also, I have to comment about the lyrics. I'm not trying to be rude by saying this, but someone please tell Gene that singing about having sex with underaged girls or women in their 20's sounds VERY creepy when you're old enough to be the woman's grandfather. I know, the members of Kiss have personas associated with the members, so you could argue this is a case of Gene keeping to his persona, but there's a reason why pop punk musicians don't keep singing songs involving going to parties when the members get past their 20's: it comes across as rather creepy to hear a person trying to sound like a teenager when they're in their 30's. When you're old enough to be one of the parents of the person your target audience is, you kind of have to find something new to sing about, as it stops being charming or cute and instead comes across as rather creepy to those who are in the know. Again, Kiss probably deserve points for sticking to their guns and not evolving their sound on this album, as most of the times when they've done that have been disasters (Music From "The Elder", anyone?), but Gene needs to start to realise that he's too old to be singing this kind of stuff now. That's not to say the lyrics to the rest of the band's songs are necessarily better than the ones Gene sings ("Take Me Down Below" is rather embarrassing to read the lyrics to, with the second verse (sung by Stanley) and the third verse getting awkwardly close to the kind of thing you'd expect to hear from Steel Panther), but Gene's songs are definitely the most uncomfortable to listen to!
So, now you've got this far, you're probably going "Where are the positives to this thing? You've done nothing beyond taking a dump on Gene Simmons and critiquing the band for stuff that's unavoidable!" Well, that's the thing: there are positives to this album, but the issues that surround the album just drag it down further and further. This is why I said at the start that this is an album that I have several issues with, but which has some stuff which I still enjoy: the issues might be unavoidable, but it doesn't stop them from being issues in the same way that tying your balls to a rocket about to take off and acknowledging that you know what you're doing is a dumb idea doesn't stop it from being a dumb idea. While the Kiss album is infinitely less painful than the other suggestion, my role as a critic is to critique stuff and giving something a free pass just because it's by a bunch of old guys isn't really the right way to go about it, as these are guys who are supposed to know better with regards to a lot of the flaws that they can make with their music.
...Yes, I know I gave The Beach Boys a lot of free passes when I reviewed That's Why God Made The Radio (which you can read here, if you haven't already read it). If it makes you feel better, just pretend I have run out of free passes from reviewing that and that I would be giving Kiss free passes for a lot of this stuff if I had any spare ones at the minute.
Anyway, let's look at what the band do right. As much as I'm not a Kiss fan, I have to admit that they can still write a solid chorus to their songs, as most of them will probably stick with you after enough listens. None of them are necessarily as infectiously catchy as, say, "Turn On The Night" or "Crazy Crazy Nights" (and I've just realised that my favourite Kiss songs have "night" in their titles...it's a coincidence, I swear!), but they're solid enough that I can see Kiss fans potentially finding these songs enjoyable at the very least and non-Kiss fans finding at least one or two songs that they'll be able to take from the album with some feeling of satisfaction. Also, despite my complaint about the band slowing down a bit, they still capable of playing their instruments fairly well. I wish they could have upped the speed a bit to help give some of the songs a bit more of a kick to them, but they still play their instruments to a decent enough standard that I can't complain too much about it. Also, if you can ignore the lyrics, none of the songs strike me as outright bad. Dull is a word that comes up more times than it really should do, but...oh hey, I found a free pass!
...Eh, why not? I'll give Kiss the benefit of the doubt about this album being dull and say that I'm not really one of Kiss' target audience, so I might be being very harsh with this review. What I'm hearing as dull might be really good to hear if you're a Kiss fan, so maybe I'm not hearing this from the right perspective.
Well, I think I've covered just about everything I can cover. Speaking as a member of the music world who finds Kiss overrated, I just find this album generally dull, with some embarrassing lyrics, a few too many songs which don't really kick into gear properly and a mastering job that would leave you wondering if you'd gone deaf if you played the album as loudly as your speakers could manage. Do I recommend avoiding this album entirely? Well...yes and no. Kiss fans who don't have this album, you probably should pick this up because, well, it's Kiss, but, if you're not really into Kiss, there's nothing here that's likely to change your mind that much. My advice is to consider what you thoughts are on Kiss. If you find them anything less than a good band, you should probably avoid this, as it's unlikely to win you over. If you find them a good band at minimum and aren't put off by the issues I've mentioned, then you should probably pick this up, as you might be able to find something in it which I can't.
Final Rating: 4 Out Of 10
A generally dull album with a lot of flaws that drag it down, but some good stuff that can make the album worth a dig into if you have the patience to give it a go and are into the band's brand of hard rock. Kiss fans should still enjoy this album, but most people who want to listen to this album would be advised to approach it with caution or to avoid it all together, as you're not really missing anything special if you don't pick this up. Basically, if you like Kiss, then you should pick this up if you haven't already got it and you aren't put off by the issues I've highlighted, if you don't like Kiss, you can safely ignore this album.
Personal Favourite Tracks: "Hell Or Hallelujah", "All For The Love Of Rock & Roll"
Sunday, 29 June 2014
Knightmare "In Death's Shadow" Review
...This is going to be an odd review for me to do, as I was provided a copy of this album by the band directly (admittedly, by my own request: cheers for doing that, guys!). This does leave me kind of in an odd situation where I know that what I say is actually important to the band as they will read what I say, but, as a critic, I still have to be honest at the same time with my critiques. Since (at the time of writing this) I'm also about to take on a contributor role for a site which will require me (among other things) to do reviews for the site, this is technically my first professional review.
...So yeah, no pressure!
Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way, let's start with the history of the band.
Knightmare are an Australian power/thrash band who have been active since 2005. From the looks of what I've seen of the band's history, the only consistent members of the band have been vocalist Mick Simpson (who is credited as MickoWar on this album: I'll stick to referring to him by his actual name in this review, as I don't especially want to be reminded of Manowar at the minute!) and guitarist Luke Besley (who is also part of the band Septerrus, which formed in 2008 and released their debut album, Tacit, in February 2013, and Seventh Sage, which formed in 2012 and...erm, that's all I know, to be honest!). Knightmare released their first EP in 2008, Unholy, which featured two musicians who, to my knowledge, have not done anything else since appearing on the EP (drummer Kade Moyes and guitarist James Jenkin) and bassist Blake Ford, now of death metal band The Ophidian Ascension (who formed in March 2009, released their first demo in 2010 and released their debut EP in August 2013). In between the release of that EP and this album (released in December 2012), the band had two musicians who did not make it onto the album: guitarist Rick Linguroski, now of the thrash metal band Demolition, which currently with one EP out (October 2007's Strike Force) and one album (2011's Kill Zone), and bassist Dean Gaudoin, who has a resumé of past bands, but nothing which he actually played on. On this album, the band's line up is completed with guitarist James (although he seems to prefer Jim) Munro (also part of Septerrus) and bassist Matt McConaghy (who, to my knowledge, has not done anything else since then). You might notice the lack of a drummer being mentioned in the complete line up for the album. I asked Jim about this in an email after spotting it while taking a quick read of the album's liner notes and he explained that, basically, the band's drummer at the time (I'm assuming it was Kade Moyes, but I might be wrong there) was injured at work and also left the band before recording was completed, so a combination of the guy's drumming and programmed drums (mostly the latter) were used to record the album. The band do currently have a drummer (Dave Allen), though!
So, with that out of the way, before I start looking at the album's artwork, I will add that the album's liner notes are actually pretty good! Growing up, one of the things I loved doing was looking at the liner notes to the albums I had (sometimes, when I didn't even want to listen to the album!) and it's great to see an artist actually put effort into the liner notes, as it tends to indicate that the artist actually wants the whole final product to be the best it can be instead of the artist just putting effort into the music and letting everything else be ignored. Since the liner notes technically only impact the presentation of the album to someone and not the actual music, I'll not critique that too much, but I will say that I'm not sure the colour choice was the best one overall: light purple (or pink, depending on how you look at it) and dark blue tend to clash horribly to my eyes, even when handled well. Still, it seems to work for the Horrors of Tzeentch, so maybe I'm unfairly complaining there!
And I'm pretty sure that reference went over a lot of people's heads...
Anyway, let's move on to the artwork for the album. I have to say, colour complaint which extends from the liner notes aside, I quite like it! It has the same kind of a feeling as a traditional power metal album, but it's got a darkness to it that shows this isn't power metal in the same vein as the European style of it, but a darker style that's more in line with US power metal (which, to be fair, is pretty much thrash metal with clean vocalists and fantasy concepts in the lyrics). I'm not entirely sure whether it's mostly based on a photo or is completely computer generated (a lot of it looks like it's from a photo, but with a lot of stuff added in to give the darker, more ominous vibe), but, if it's the latter, then I have to give the person who made the artwork credit for managing to make it look surprisingly realistic! If it's the former...well, credit to whoever took the picture and the people who added the effects afterwards, as the only effect that I feel doesn't work is the arm in the river. I can't exactly place why, but it just doesn't look entirely right to me...
Anyway, now I've looked at the artwork, let's dive into the music!
So, one of the first things that will strike you about this album is that all seven songs are somewhat long: the shortest is the opening track, "Cazador de Hombres" (...I don't actually know what that means), which is still nearly six and a half minutes long (as is the second shortest track on the album, "Apocalypse"). You could argue that this is Death Magnetic syndrome at work, but that would be horribly unfair...Metallica apparently took influence from Machine Head's The Blackening when they were working on that album, so it should actually be called The Blackening syndrome, if you want to be really accurate!
OK, being serious: this is not an album for listeners who lack patience, running for nearly an hour despite only being made up of seven tracks. Since I usually fall under this category (what can I say, I grew up mostly listening to folk, pop and punk for most of my childhood and early teenage years, genres which aren't exactly known for their long and epic songs, and I tend to avoid progressive metal in general unless it's in the vein of Queensryche and Crimson Glory!), I actually found it difficult to click with this album during my first few listens. So, if you are not fond of longer songs, you might want to give this a miss, as you'll probably find that this won't be to your taste.
The music itself...as weird as this might sound, I don't find it especially memorable, but I still really like it! One of the things that is the band's big strength is that their music flows brilliantly and is a joy to listen to...but one of their biggest issues is that very little of it really sticks with your once you've finished listening to it. It's very well played (and surprisingly unique sounding) thrash/power metal, with an understanding of the importance of having levels to your sound (so, not just playing the same kind of thing for fifty minutes and going "Yep, that's our album!", like a lot of bands seem to do...) to make the songs not wear themselves out, an almost progressive take on power/thrash metal that shows musicians who are writing far more intelligently than a lot of power and thrash metal musicians tend to (no offence intended to other power and thrash metal musicians reading this, of course: I just feel that Knightmare understands that progressive means more than just "technically demanding" and "long" and incorporates influence from progressive metal very nicely into their sound) and the performances are really enjoyable to listen to, but the problem is that very little of the album sticks in your mind when it isn't actually being listened to. Nothing on the album is bad by any measure, but, for an album connected to power metal, there is a noticeable lack of anything really catchy on it, which drags the album down for me quite a fair bit. If the band works on their ability to make their material more memorable in the future, I don't see why they couldn't go on to do great things in the future: the songwriting ability is definitely there to produce something amazing, it's just the ability to make their material memorable that I feel is letting them down at the minute. Most of the album was written or co-written by Besley, according to the liner notes (the only song he isn't credited as the solo writer of the music for a song is "Cazador de Hombres", where a co-writer credit is noted for someone with the last name Pertz (my research hasn't informed me of who that is: anyone who does know and wants to let me know, feel free to put it in the comments below!), and Mick Simpson is noted as the sole writer of the lyrics for "Granted Death" and co-writer of the lyrics to "Apocalypse": other than that, Besley is the only credited songwriter on the album), so I have to give the guy huge props for his hard work on the material!
Mick Simpson is a good vocalist, with a fairly strong voice and a fairly wide singing range. His performance on the album makes me think of Harry Conklin's on Jag Panzer's The Scourge Of The Light album, for some reason which I can't quite place. I also like his ability to swap to a somewhat growled lower range in the backing vocals: it adds something interesting to the band's sound which I feel gives them a bit of an edge. I wouldn't encourage him to make these more prominent in the band's sound, though, as I think the band's sound is fine as it is. The thing that surprises me is that Simpson has a somewhat small impact on the album as a whole: despite his role as the vocalist in the band, he feels somewhat underused across the album, with the focus mostly going on the music behind him. While this can work for some bands (Dream Theater springs to mind), I feel that it doesn't completely work here, as Simpson's presence feels small even on the band's shortest songs. I don't think this is a huge issue overall, but it's enough of one for me to feel that it will impact the album for people who aren't especially patient when it comes to longer songs.
I have to give a lot of credit to Munro and Besley for their guitar playing on this album as well. While I will say that it still seems to fall within the boundaries of thrash metal in general, there is a more melodic touch across the album in their playing that would easily justify connecting the band to the power metal scene. I can't really place which bands I am reminded of, but I wouldn't be surprised if the members were influenced by bands like Forbidden, Heathen and ...And Justice For All by Metallica (and maybe a hint of The Blackening by Machine Head and some Nevermore?) for the more progressive approach to their sound and combined that with influence from US power metal bands like Jag Panzer and Iced Earth and threw in a tiny bit of influence from death metal circles (although I can't think of any specific vocalist who would match Simpson's growls: I'm not a big fan of extreme metal in general...) for flavour. To a limited extent, I'm also reminded of Holy Grail's somewhat varied take on traditional heavy metal, for some reason. Besley also plays the cello on this album, which, I have to be honest, is not an instrument I'd have expected to hear on this album. Unfortunately, I have little reference on how a cello sounds when played well and I managed to miss it when I was listening to the album, so I'm going to have to pass on commenting on that. Sorry, dude, no offence intended!
McConaghy's bass is kind of just...there. On low volumes, it's nigh on impossible to hear it. Some will say that's a good thing because it encourages you to put the volume up louder and enjoy the music more, but I tend to find that, if you have to put the volume up to hear something properly, you can risk damaging your ears due to everything else being too loud, ESPECIALLY if the mastering is too loud. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a good while, though, so some people will probably be fine with how quiet the bass is and want to turn it up! For me, though...I don't know, I'd kind of like the hear the bass in stuff without needing to have to turn the volume up particularly loud. I guess I just kind of prefer bass heavy mixes, go figure...
I don't think I can really critique the drumming especially well, due to them mostly being programmed drums. What I will say is that I feel the band suffers a little bit from occasionally overusing double bass drumming. They're not as bad with it as some bands are and the drumming is generally varied enough to give it a free pass, though, so I'd say that's a bit of a minor complaint overall.
Moving on to the production of the album, I have to say that, while it might be a tiny bit on the loud side with the mastering, the mixing (if you take my bass complaint out of the equation) is pretty good and the actual production is just about perfect: it sounds pretty clear, but not in the sort of way that I see a lot of people objecting to. It's not the super clean style employed by, say, Killswitch Engage and Trivium (I'm reaching for metalcore bands because, well, most metalcore bands tend to have VERY clean production. Not that I personally have a huge problem with that: I can enjoy metalcore, when I'm in the right mood for it...), but it's definitely making the best of modern recording technology to get a very clear sound on the album. I doubt this will win over the people who like their music to sound like it was recorded in a garage in one take (although I feel I should point out that you COULD feasibly record a professional sounding final album in your garage, if you just set things up properly and soundproof your garage to prevent other sounds from leaking into it...), but, for most people, I don't see the production on this album being a huge issue. Huge praise to Luke Besley for his production work and props to Ermin for the mixing of the album and Plec for the mastering of the album, as, in spite of my complaints, you still all did a great job!
Before I move on to provide my final thoughts, a small nitpick involving the track listing on the album: I think the band might have missed a trick by putting "Cazador de Hombres" as the opening track on the album over "Granted Death". I just feel that the most atmospheric opening of that track might have been a better way to open the album than the more thrash influenced rush of "Cazador de Hombres". I just think it might have been better placed somewhere else on the album, as "Granted Death" feels to me like it could have opened the album just as well, if not better, than "Cazador de Hombres" did.
So, final thoughts? Well, I think the band have a lot of potential, but they have to tighten up their songwriting a bit before I think they will start to gain greater recognition around the world. Most of what they need to do is not anything especially drastic, though: just focus on making the material a bit more memorable overall, try to better integrate Simpson's vocals into it and maybe be willing to throw in a few more ideas that are a bit further out of the box for the style of music they are playing. While I feel the production is a slight weakness due to the somewhat quiet mixing of the bass and the mastering being a bit on the loud side, I can't really say either of them are crippling issues and, for the most part, could probably be fairly dismissed as me complaining about it just not matching my personal taste in production. I think that the band have the potential to go far, so, despite my rating probably not being high enough to justify saying this, I would definitely suggest keeping an eye on this band, as I have a feeling they could go on to produce something amazing in the future!
Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10
A brilliantly written and rather unique sounding, if not especially memorable, power/thrash album. If you're into power/thrash metal with a somewhat progressive lean to it, this is definitely worth checking out. For people who aren't interested in that kind of thing, though, you might want to give this a miss, as this probably won't be your kind of thing.
Personal Favourite Tracks: "Cazador de Hombres" and "Knightmare"
...So yeah, no pressure!
Anyway, with that disclaimer out of the way, let's start with the history of the band.
Knightmare are an Australian power/thrash band who have been active since 2005. From the looks of what I've seen of the band's history, the only consistent members of the band have been vocalist Mick Simpson (who is credited as MickoWar on this album: I'll stick to referring to him by his actual name in this review, as I don't especially want to be reminded of Manowar at the minute!) and guitarist Luke Besley (who is also part of the band Septerrus, which formed in 2008 and released their debut album, Tacit, in February 2013, and Seventh Sage, which formed in 2012 and...erm, that's all I know, to be honest!). Knightmare released their first EP in 2008, Unholy, which featured two musicians who, to my knowledge, have not done anything else since appearing on the EP (drummer Kade Moyes and guitarist James Jenkin) and bassist Blake Ford, now of death metal band The Ophidian Ascension (who formed in March 2009, released their first demo in 2010 and released their debut EP in August 2013). In between the release of that EP and this album (released in December 2012), the band had two musicians who did not make it onto the album: guitarist Rick Linguroski, now of the thrash metal band Demolition, which currently with one EP out (October 2007's Strike Force) and one album (2011's Kill Zone), and bassist Dean Gaudoin, who has a resumé of past bands, but nothing which he actually played on. On this album, the band's line up is completed with guitarist James (although he seems to prefer Jim) Munro (also part of Septerrus) and bassist Matt McConaghy (who, to my knowledge, has not done anything else since then). You might notice the lack of a drummer being mentioned in the complete line up for the album. I asked Jim about this in an email after spotting it while taking a quick read of the album's liner notes and he explained that, basically, the band's drummer at the time (I'm assuming it was Kade Moyes, but I might be wrong there) was injured at work and also left the band before recording was completed, so a combination of the guy's drumming and programmed drums (mostly the latter) were used to record the album. The band do currently have a drummer (Dave Allen), though!
So, with that out of the way, before I start looking at the album's artwork, I will add that the album's liner notes are actually pretty good! Growing up, one of the things I loved doing was looking at the liner notes to the albums I had (sometimes, when I didn't even want to listen to the album!) and it's great to see an artist actually put effort into the liner notes, as it tends to indicate that the artist actually wants the whole final product to be the best it can be instead of the artist just putting effort into the music and letting everything else be ignored. Since the liner notes technically only impact the presentation of the album to someone and not the actual music, I'll not critique that too much, but I will say that I'm not sure the colour choice was the best one overall: light purple (or pink, depending on how you look at it) and dark blue tend to clash horribly to my eyes, even when handled well. Still, it seems to work for the Horrors of Tzeentch, so maybe I'm unfairly complaining there!
And I'm pretty sure that reference went over a lot of people's heads...
Anyway, let's move on to the artwork for the album. I have to say, colour complaint which extends from the liner notes aside, I quite like it! It has the same kind of a feeling as a traditional power metal album, but it's got a darkness to it that shows this isn't power metal in the same vein as the European style of it, but a darker style that's more in line with US power metal (which, to be fair, is pretty much thrash metal with clean vocalists and fantasy concepts in the lyrics). I'm not entirely sure whether it's mostly based on a photo or is completely computer generated (a lot of it looks like it's from a photo, but with a lot of stuff added in to give the darker, more ominous vibe), but, if it's the latter, then I have to give the person who made the artwork credit for managing to make it look surprisingly realistic! If it's the former...well, credit to whoever took the picture and the people who added the effects afterwards, as the only effect that I feel doesn't work is the arm in the river. I can't exactly place why, but it just doesn't look entirely right to me...
Anyway, now I've looked at the artwork, let's dive into the music!
So, one of the first things that will strike you about this album is that all seven songs are somewhat long: the shortest is the opening track, "Cazador de Hombres" (...I don't actually know what that means), which is still nearly six and a half minutes long (as is the second shortest track on the album, "Apocalypse"). You could argue that this is Death Magnetic syndrome at work, but that would be horribly unfair...Metallica apparently took influence from Machine Head's The Blackening when they were working on that album, so it should actually be called The Blackening syndrome, if you want to be really accurate!
OK, being serious: this is not an album for listeners who lack patience, running for nearly an hour despite only being made up of seven tracks. Since I usually fall under this category (what can I say, I grew up mostly listening to folk, pop and punk for most of my childhood and early teenage years, genres which aren't exactly known for their long and epic songs, and I tend to avoid progressive metal in general unless it's in the vein of Queensryche and Crimson Glory!), I actually found it difficult to click with this album during my first few listens. So, if you are not fond of longer songs, you might want to give this a miss, as you'll probably find that this won't be to your taste.
The music itself...as weird as this might sound, I don't find it especially memorable, but I still really like it! One of the things that is the band's big strength is that their music flows brilliantly and is a joy to listen to...but one of their biggest issues is that very little of it really sticks with your once you've finished listening to it. It's very well played (and surprisingly unique sounding) thrash/power metal, with an understanding of the importance of having levels to your sound (so, not just playing the same kind of thing for fifty minutes and going "Yep, that's our album!", like a lot of bands seem to do...) to make the songs not wear themselves out, an almost progressive take on power/thrash metal that shows musicians who are writing far more intelligently than a lot of power and thrash metal musicians tend to (no offence intended to other power and thrash metal musicians reading this, of course: I just feel that Knightmare understands that progressive means more than just "technically demanding" and "long" and incorporates influence from progressive metal very nicely into their sound) and the performances are really enjoyable to listen to, but the problem is that very little of the album sticks in your mind when it isn't actually being listened to. Nothing on the album is bad by any measure, but, for an album connected to power metal, there is a noticeable lack of anything really catchy on it, which drags the album down for me quite a fair bit. If the band works on their ability to make their material more memorable in the future, I don't see why they couldn't go on to do great things in the future: the songwriting ability is definitely there to produce something amazing, it's just the ability to make their material memorable that I feel is letting them down at the minute. Most of the album was written or co-written by Besley, according to the liner notes (the only song he isn't credited as the solo writer of the music for a song is "Cazador de Hombres", where a co-writer credit is noted for someone with the last name Pertz (my research hasn't informed me of who that is: anyone who does know and wants to let me know, feel free to put it in the comments below!), and Mick Simpson is noted as the sole writer of the lyrics for "Granted Death" and co-writer of the lyrics to "Apocalypse": other than that, Besley is the only credited songwriter on the album), so I have to give the guy huge props for his hard work on the material!
Mick Simpson is a good vocalist, with a fairly strong voice and a fairly wide singing range. His performance on the album makes me think of Harry Conklin's on Jag Panzer's The Scourge Of The Light album, for some reason which I can't quite place. I also like his ability to swap to a somewhat growled lower range in the backing vocals: it adds something interesting to the band's sound which I feel gives them a bit of an edge. I wouldn't encourage him to make these more prominent in the band's sound, though, as I think the band's sound is fine as it is. The thing that surprises me is that Simpson has a somewhat small impact on the album as a whole: despite his role as the vocalist in the band, he feels somewhat underused across the album, with the focus mostly going on the music behind him. While this can work for some bands (Dream Theater springs to mind), I feel that it doesn't completely work here, as Simpson's presence feels small even on the band's shortest songs. I don't think this is a huge issue overall, but it's enough of one for me to feel that it will impact the album for people who aren't especially patient when it comes to longer songs.
I have to give a lot of credit to Munro and Besley for their guitar playing on this album as well. While I will say that it still seems to fall within the boundaries of thrash metal in general, there is a more melodic touch across the album in their playing that would easily justify connecting the band to the power metal scene. I can't really place which bands I am reminded of, but I wouldn't be surprised if the members were influenced by bands like Forbidden, Heathen and ...And Justice For All by Metallica (and maybe a hint of The Blackening by Machine Head and some Nevermore?) for the more progressive approach to their sound and combined that with influence from US power metal bands like Jag Panzer and Iced Earth and threw in a tiny bit of influence from death metal circles (although I can't think of any specific vocalist who would match Simpson's growls: I'm not a big fan of extreme metal in general...) for flavour. To a limited extent, I'm also reminded of Holy Grail's somewhat varied take on traditional heavy metal, for some reason. Besley also plays the cello on this album, which, I have to be honest, is not an instrument I'd have expected to hear on this album. Unfortunately, I have little reference on how a cello sounds when played well and I managed to miss it when I was listening to the album, so I'm going to have to pass on commenting on that. Sorry, dude, no offence intended!
McConaghy's bass is kind of just...there. On low volumes, it's nigh on impossible to hear it. Some will say that's a good thing because it encourages you to put the volume up louder and enjoy the music more, but I tend to find that, if you have to put the volume up to hear something properly, you can risk damaging your ears due to everything else being too loud, ESPECIALLY if the mastering is too loud. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a good while, though, so some people will probably be fine with how quiet the bass is and want to turn it up! For me, though...I don't know, I'd kind of like the hear the bass in stuff without needing to have to turn the volume up particularly loud. I guess I just kind of prefer bass heavy mixes, go figure...
I don't think I can really critique the drumming especially well, due to them mostly being programmed drums. What I will say is that I feel the band suffers a little bit from occasionally overusing double bass drumming. They're not as bad with it as some bands are and the drumming is generally varied enough to give it a free pass, though, so I'd say that's a bit of a minor complaint overall.
Moving on to the production of the album, I have to say that, while it might be a tiny bit on the loud side with the mastering, the mixing (if you take my bass complaint out of the equation) is pretty good and the actual production is just about perfect: it sounds pretty clear, but not in the sort of way that I see a lot of people objecting to. It's not the super clean style employed by, say, Killswitch Engage and Trivium (I'm reaching for metalcore bands because, well, most metalcore bands tend to have VERY clean production. Not that I personally have a huge problem with that: I can enjoy metalcore, when I'm in the right mood for it...), but it's definitely making the best of modern recording technology to get a very clear sound on the album. I doubt this will win over the people who like their music to sound like it was recorded in a garage in one take (although I feel I should point out that you COULD feasibly record a professional sounding final album in your garage, if you just set things up properly and soundproof your garage to prevent other sounds from leaking into it...), but, for most people, I don't see the production on this album being a huge issue. Huge praise to Luke Besley for his production work and props to Ermin for the mixing of the album and Plec for the mastering of the album, as, in spite of my complaints, you still all did a great job!
Before I move on to provide my final thoughts, a small nitpick involving the track listing on the album: I think the band might have missed a trick by putting "Cazador de Hombres" as the opening track on the album over "Granted Death". I just feel that the most atmospheric opening of that track might have been a better way to open the album than the more thrash influenced rush of "Cazador de Hombres". I just think it might have been better placed somewhere else on the album, as "Granted Death" feels to me like it could have opened the album just as well, if not better, than "Cazador de Hombres" did.
So, final thoughts? Well, I think the band have a lot of potential, but they have to tighten up their songwriting a bit before I think they will start to gain greater recognition around the world. Most of what they need to do is not anything especially drastic, though: just focus on making the material a bit more memorable overall, try to better integrate Simpson's vocals into it and maybe be willing to throw in a few more ideas that are a bit further out of the box for the style of music they are playing. While I feel the production is a slight weakness due to the somewhat quiet mixing of the bass and the mastering being a bit on the loud side, I can't really say either of them are crippling issues and, for the most part, could probably be fairly dismissed as me complaining about it just not matching my personal taste in production. I think that the band have the potential to go far, so, despite my rating probably not being high enough to justify saying this, I would definitely suggest keeping an eye on this band, as I have a feeling they could go on to produce something amazing in the future!
Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10
A brilliantly written and rather unique sounding, if not especially memorable, power/thrash album. If you're into power/thrash metal with a somewhat progressive lean to it, this is definitely worth checking out. For people who aren't interested in that kind of thing, though, you might want to give this a miss, as this probably won't be your kind of thing.
Personal Favourite Tracks: "Cazador de Hombres" and "Knightmare"
Live Performance Review: Metallica At Glastonbury
...OK, this is going to be something a bit different.
I actually was originally going to comment on the controversy of having Metallica as a headliner for Glastonbury, but, erm...I found the final result was a bit too much of an angry rant (even compared to some of my angrier articles!), so I opted to delete the final result. For a period of time, I was actually going to let Metallica's time at Glastonbury be passed by without comment (and unwatched, since I'm not a big fan of watching live events).
Then a friend of mine admitted on Facebook to having a new found respect for Metallica after seeing their headlining performance (bear in mind, he's usually the kind of guy who makes comments about Lars' drumming and Kirk's guitar playing) and I noticed that even blabbermouth.net, usually one of the first places to rip Metallica to shreds, was making positive comments about Metallica's show.
And I thought to myself "...OK, maybe I should give it a watch." Thank goodness for BBC iPlayer!
So, what did I think of it? Well, let's start with the setlist:
But the greatest setlist in the world doesn't mean anything if the performances are terrible. And that really is the big question: how does Metallica do with that setlist live at Glastonbury?
Well...really well, actually! I've never seen Metallica live before now, so I didn't know what I was expecting and, well, I'm glad I was in the house on my own when I watched it, as I spent most of the set singing along quite happily (and loudly...my apologies to the neighbours!) and just generally being rather impressed. Considering I've heard A LOT of negative comments about Metallica as a live act (and Lars and Kirk live in particular: James and Rob tend to avoid any noticeable criticism, as far as I've seen...), I was rather impressed with how well they did! Let me break it down as much as I can. As a note in advance, if I don't say anything about something, it's because I felt it was up to what Metallica did on the album version of the song and, because I don't feel like spending hours covering everything, I've opted to not cover it to avoid going "This was fine" multiple times.
James Hetfield
James' voice sounded pretty good throughout the set. I feel he was struggling a bit near the end of the verses for "Wherever I May Roam", which struck me as somewhat odd due to it being so early in the set that I was noticing him start to struggle, but I feel that such a complaint would be unfair, as live environments are very different from studio environments. "Sad But True" was also a bit patchy at points, but not to the extent that I found it distracting. "Cyanide" was a bit iffy in the quiet section, but it wasn't necessarily bad: I just didn't think it was the best it could have been, as James seemed to drop his voice to be a bit too quiet and seemed slightly caught out by it. I felt a bit disappointed that James didn't sing the higher range vocals on "The Unforgiven" in the chorus, but I'll admit that it's more just because I really like that higher range bit than any complaint about how he sung it live: he still did it justice in a more comfortable range for him. Not sure his lower range in "One" was the best it could have been, but he still did fine throughout the song and he had been singing for nearly an hour by that point, so it's understandable that his voice wouldn't be quite as good as it was when he started and he more than made up for it with just how powerful his additions to the song compared to the record version of the song were: you actually could feel the emotion in his voice at those points and it just made the song into possibly the best version of the song I've heard to date. Which, admittedly, isn't saying much due to how little I keep up to date with Metallica in general these days, but it's still impressive. I also have to admit that I gave an involuntary yell of "yeah!" when he sung "Scanning the scene in Glastonbury tonight" at the start of "Seek And Destroy": that was a really cool touch!
His guitar playing in general was, for the most part, as good as on the record, so there's not really a lot to say there. Huge credit to the guy, it's got to be tough to have played guitar as long as he has and still be just as good as you were over three decades ago!
As a frontman, James struck me as surprisingly down to earth in his interactions with the crowd. If you'd not told me Metallica were a big band and been big for over two decades (let's pretend for a second that I hadn't heard of Metallica), I'd have thought that he was the frontman for a bar band that had recently got big due to his friendliness on stage and general enthusiasm when interacting with the audience. You can also tell that he's still passionate about music now, which is really cool! One review I read of the band's performance on the live DVD they did with the rest of the Big 4 (Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) described him as like everyone's favourite uncle and, while I wouldn't QUITE go that far, it's fair to say that he strikes me as the kind of guy who you would really like to hang around with on a regular basis. There's no way around saying this, so I'll bite the bullet: he's just cool (God, how I hate having to use that word in that way...)! I liked his short speech between "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad But True" about how it was about time that hard rock and heavy metal started to get represented at Glastonbury since everything else was already there (although I think the choice of dedicating "Sad But True" to the fans who have waited for a metal band to play Glastonbury and the British metal bands who dream of being on a stage at Glastonbury was an odd one: it's not exactly a song that seems to suit such a dedication, when you know the lyrics to it!), as he raises a fair point, but I doubt it's going to change much beyond MAYBE getting Deep Purple, Iron Maiden or (if they're still going by this time next year) Black Sabbath at Glastonbury...hmm, actually, I'd be cool with any of them headlining Glastonbury if it happened! One request to anyone who is going to do the organisation from Glastonbury, if you're reading this: if you're going to do that, could you also try to get Lindisfarne, Runrig and/or Planxty and organise their sets so that they AREN'T on at the same time as them? If you can do that...I'd like a ticket, please! OK, OK, continuing with critiquing James' performance as a frontman at Glastonbury. I liked his short speech between "Fade To Black" and "Cyanide" as well (it was actually cool to see the guy asking the crowd the questions he did), but, again, I'm not sure dedicating "Cyanide" to everyone watching was really the best decision: the lyrics to "Cyanide" aren't exactly what I'd say are the kind of thing you'd dedicate to someone. I'm not sure he needed to try to use the "brothers and sisters" line or the "Glastonbury family" one, but that's more because it's a bit of a cliche of the metal scene which annoys me whenever I notice it: for an audience that isn't aware of those cliches, it's probably a nice change to have the band trying to actually relate with you and want you to like them instead of basically ignoring you and just playing the music because that's what they're there to do. Whether that's going to be something more bands will try at Glastonbury...I don't know, it seems to be more in line with what works for punk, hard rock and metal music than anything else that goes to Glastonbury. It might set a bit more of a precedent in the future, it might not. Either way, if I'd been in that audience and had that happen, I'd have probably gone "Wow, that's cool!" So yeah, basically, James was a great frontman!
Lars Ulrich
This is the guy I was most worried about, if I'm honest. A lot of people have said that Lars has gone downhill as a drummer since the 90's started, and he wasn't great to start with. While I don't necessarily agree with their final point (thrash drumming is pretty intensive on drummers in general and isn't actually that easy to be able to do to any standard: I might rag on extreme metal drummers for relying heavily on double bass drumming, but I would never claim it's easy to do, as you're still hitting the bass drum very rapidly and, often, with a lot of power to make sure you can provide the punch expected for a metal band) and feel Lars is often unfairly criticised for the band he is in (his drumming isn't necessarily bad, it's just not great by thrash metal standards, which are actually very high standards when you think about what the average thrash metal drummer has to do in a typical song...on a technical level, I'd say that he's not quite into the level of most metal drummers (and most thrash metal drummers could probably outplay Lars without any real difficulties), but he is better than a lot of typical rock drummers in that he will rarely stick with just keeping a beat for the song and at least tries to provide an interesting performance behind the kit which can make paying attention to what he's doing worth it), I will admit that I was expecting a disaster area due to the fact that having a drummer mess up will often mess up everyone else as well. But Lars was, surprisingly, rather good! I wouldn't say he quite matches up to himself on record anyway in the show, but he managed to get through the performance without any real mess ups that I could notice and his double bass technique was a lot stronger than I think people were expecting it to be. I suppose my big concern is that, if this is considered to be one of Lars' best performances in a good while, it's not impossible that he stepped up only for this show and will get noticeably worse in the future. If I could send a message to Lars, I would encourage him to aim to match this standard of drumming from now on (either through practice or doing a bit more warming up before the show) and MAYBE break up the thrash drumming a bit by placing a few less complex songs in between the really difficult ones. It works for Dani Loble of Helloween (and Andi Deris, come to think of it), as it basically allows the guy to rest up a bit with something he can do without any difficulty before he has to go all out on songs like, say, "Kill It" or "Long Live The King".
Kirk Hammett
Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous about Kirk's guitar playing in advance of watching the performance, as I knew the guy had been getting back in touch with his thrash roots (playing shows with Exodus and Death Angel over the last two years will do that to you) and, well, I kind of like how he plays lead guitar (although the fact my knowledge of the guitar is literally just "Three chords and it looks like a guitar" may have something to do with that...). Like Lars, I find Kirk is often unfairly criticised, being perceived by many as a bad guitarist who gets by through doing the same thing with his solos every time (or through ripping off Dave Mustaine, depending on who you ask...). Which may or may not be true (again, I have limited knowledge of how to play the guitar and I do not wish to get into an argument with people about this!), but that doesn't necessarily make his solos bad in and of themselves: thrash metal isn't exactly a genre which demands great technical ability, just an ability to play very quickly, and, in that aspect, Kirk is definitely not a bad lead guitarist. Unoriginal in the creation of his guitar solos? Yeah, that'd be fair. Outright bad? Erm...not really, no. On a technical level, I'd say his lead guitar playing is definitely a lot better than most hard rock lead guitarists and is definitely on par with what a lot of metal lead guitarists can do, if not better in quite a few cases. Anyway, soapbox moment over, I think he did a great job live. For the most part, he replicated his solos from the band's records very well and the few moments where he did slip up were within what I would consider acceptable for a live performance (so, a few minor hiccups that most people would have fairly written off). Again, however, comments indicate that this is one of Kirk's best performances in a while, so I fear that Kirk could slip back in the future. I really hope he doesn't, as his performance at Glastonbury was really good and actually has me kind of excited for the band's next album...just don't take until 2016 to get it done, as I'm still annoyed at having waited for it since I read news about a new album in 2011! Oh yeah, and please don't get Rubin involved in the production of it, too...sorry, moving on!
Robert Trujillo
The relative new boy to Metallica (he's been in the band since 2003), Rob has never really left an impression on me: I couldn't hear his bass at all on Death Magnetic thanks to the painfully loudly mastered production (thanks for that, Mr. Rubin...OK, OK, I'll stop!), I haven't listened to Beyond Magnetic much and I refuse to acknowledge that I ever listened to Lulu! So this was kind of my first chance to get a measure for Rob...and it still didn't leave me with much of one! For some reason, Rob's bass seemed rather quiet in the BBC iPlayer video, so I can't really say how well he did overall. Bear in mind, I was playing the video AND my laptop speakers at maximum and I was still struggling to hear him properly! Ah well, nitpick aside, he was fun to watch onstage and, when I did hear his bass, he did a fine job on it. No major complaints to make, but I would have liked the bass to have been louder!
So, what are my final thoughts on the show? Well, it was really, really good! A few minor complaints aside, it was just a great show that showed that, at least live, Metallica can bring it when they want to! If the band continue to match this standard on all of their following live shows and release a strong album in 2015 (with...you know where I'm going with that, so I'll stop there!), I reckon they'll still be going strong for at least a few more years! In terms of how their show will impact Glastonbury...I don't know. Part of me is wanting to say "This has broken down the doors, people: metal is coming to Glastonbury, and it'll rock it like a hurricane!", but another part of me suspects that Metallica are going to be known as the first and only metal band to ever play Glastonbury. Metal fans aren't exactly known for being open minded when it comes to a lot of the stuff that Glastonbury plays, so I suspect that metal fans aren't going to start suddenly flocking to Glastonbury and, as such, metal bands aren't likely to start being added because of an audience for them now being there. Throw in the typical people who make up the Glastonbury crowd and Metallica's appearance causing a lot of controversy among that crowd and I doubt another metal band will ever be invited. Maybe some of the people in the crowd will have been won over and encouraged to give hard rock and metal music a chance, but I fear that a large number of people will not have. And that's a huge shame, as Metallica's performance was brilliant! So, even though Metallica's performance is one for the history books, I suspect it will be all for naught in the long run.
But you know what?
If it was all for naught, then at least Metallica gave it their all and, in doing so, gave a performance that was fitting of their status as legends of metal. And that, at the end of the day, is all that the metal scene could have asked of them.
Final Rating: 9 Out Of 10
I actually was originally going to comment on the controversy of having Metallica as a headliner for Glastonbury, but, erm...I found the final result was a bit too much of an angry rant (even compared to some of my angrier articles!), so I opted to delete the final result. For a period of time, I was actually going to let Metallica's time at Glastonbury be passed by without comment (and unwatched, since I'm not a big fan of watching live events).
Then a friend of mine admitted on Facebook to having a new found respect for Metallica after seeing their headlining performance (bear in mind, he's usually the kind of guy who makes comments about Lars' drumming and Kirk's guitar playing) and I noticed that even blabbermouth.net, usually one of the first places to rip Metallica to shreds, was making positive comments about Metallica's show.
And I thought to myself "...OK, maybe I should give it a watch." Thank goodness for BBC iPlayer!
So, what did I think of it? Well, let's start with the setlist:
- Creeping Death
- For Whom The Bell Tolls
- Wherever I May Roam
- Sad But True
- Fade To Black
- Cyanide
- The Unforgiven
- The Memory Remains
- One
- Master Of Puppets
- Nothing Else Matters
- Enter Sandman
- Whiskey In The Jar
- Seek & Destroy
But the greatest setlist in the world doesn't mean anything if the performances are terrible. And that really is the big question: how does Metallica do with that setlist live at Glastonbury?
Well...really well, actually! I've never seen Metallica live before now, so I didn't know what I was expecting and, well, I'm glad I was in the house on my own when I watched it, as I spent most of the set singing along quite happily (and loudly...my apologies to the neighbours!) and just generally being rather impressed. Considering I've heard A LOT of negative comments about Metallica as a live act (and Lars and Kirk live in particular: James and Rob tend to avoid any noticeable criticism, as far as I've seen...), I was rather impressed with how well they did! Let me break it down as much as I can. As a note in advance, if I don't say anything about something, it's because I felt it was up to what Metallica did on the album version of the song and, because I don't feel like spending hours covering everything, I've opted to not cover it to avoid going "This was fine" multiple times.
James Hetfield
James' voice sounded pretty good throughout the set. I feel he was struggling a bit near the end of the verses for "Wherever I May Roam", which struck me as somewhat odd due to it being so early in the set that I was noticing him start to struggle, but I feel that such a complaint would be unfair, as live environments are very different from studio environments. "Sad But True" was also a bit patchy at points, but not to the extent that I found it distracting. "Cyanide" was a bit iffy in the quiet section, but it wasn't necessarily bad: I just didn't think it was the best it could have been, as James seemed to drop his voice to be a bit too quiet and seemed slightly caught out by it. I felt a bit disappointed that James didn't sing the higher range vocals on "The Unforgiven" in the chorus, but I'll admit that it's more just because I really like that higher range bit than any complaint about how he sung it live: he still did it justice in a more comfortable range for him. Not sure his lower range in "One" was the best it could have been, but he still did fine throughout the song and he had been singing for nearly an hour by that point, so it's understandable that his voice wouldn't be quite as good as it was when he started and he more than made up for it with just how powerful his additions to the song compared to the record version of the song were: you actually could feel the emotion in his voice at those points and it just made the song into possibly the best version of the song I've heard to date. Which, admittedly, isn't saying much due to how little I keep up to date with Metallica in general these days, but it's still impressive. I also have to admit that I gave an involuntary yell of "yeah!" when he sung "Scanning the scene in Glastonbury tonight" at the start of "Seek And Destroy": that was a really cool touch!
His guitar playing in general was, for the most part, as good as on the record, so there's not really a lot to say there. Huge credit to the guy, it's got to be tough to have played guitar as long as he has and still be just as good as you were over three decades ago!
As a frontman, James struck me as surprisingly down to earth in his interactions with the crowd. If you'd not told me Metallica were a big band and been big for over two decades (let's pretend for a second that I hadn't heard of Metallica), I'd have thought that he was the frontman for a bar band that had recently got big due to his friendliness on stage and general enthusiasm when interacting with the audience. You can also tell that he's still passionate about music now, which is really cool! One review I read of the band's performance on the live DVD they did with the rest of the Big 4 (Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) described him as like everyone's favourite uncle and, while I wouldn't QUITE go that far, it's fair to say that he strikes me as the kind of guy who you would really like to hang around with on a regular basis. There's no way around saying this, so I'll bite the bullet: he's just cool (God, how I hate having to use that word in that way...)! I liked his short speech between "Wherever I May Roam" and "Sad But True" about how it was about time that hard rock and heavy metal started to get represented at Glastonbury since everything else was already there (although I think the choice of dedicating "Sad But True" to the fans who have waited for a metal band to play Glastonbury and the British metal bands who dream of being on a stage at Glastonbury was an odd one: it's not exactly a song that seems to suit such a dedication, when you know the lyrics to it!), as he raises a fair point, but I doubt it's going to change much beyond MAYBE getting Deep Purple, Iron Maiden or (if they're still going by this time next year) Black Sabbath at Glastonbury...hmm, actually, I'd be cool with any of them headlining Glastonbury if it happened! One request to anyone who is going to do the organisation from Glastonbury, if you're reading this: if you're going to do that, could you also try to get Lindisfarne, Runrig and/or Planxty and organise their sets so that they AREN'T on at the same time as them? If you can do that...I'd like a ticket, please! OK, OK, continuing with critiquing James' performance as a frontman at Glastonbury. I liked his short speech between "Fade To Black" and "Cyanide" as well (it was actually cool to see the guy asking the crowd the questions he did), but, again, I'm not sure dedicating "Cyanide" to everyone watching was really the best decision: the lyrics to "Cyanide" aren't exactly what I'd say are the kind of thing you'd dedicate to someone. I'm not sure he needed to try to use the "brothers and sisters" line or the "Glastonbury family" one, but that's more because it's a bit of a cliche of the metal scene which annoys me whenever I notice it: for an audience that isn't aware of those cliches, it's probably a nice change to have the band trying to actually relate with you and want you to like them instead of basically ignoring you and just playing the music because that's what they're there to do. Whether that's going to be something more bands will try at Glastonbury...I don't know, it seems to be more in line with what works for punk, hard rock and metal music than anything else that goes to Glastonbury. It might set a bit more of a precedent in the future, it might not. Either way, if I'd been in that audience and had that happen, I'd have probably gone "Wow, that's cool!" So yeah, basically, James was a great frontman!
Lars Ulrich
This is the guy I was most worried about, if I'm honest. A lot of people have said that Lars has gone downhill as a drummer since the 90's started, and he wasn't great to start with. While I don't necessarily agree with their final point (thrash drumming is pretty intensive on drummers in general and isn't actually that easy to be able to do to any standard: I might rag on extreme metal drummers for relying heavily on double bass drumming, but I would never claim it's easy to do, as you're still hitting the bass drum very rapidly and, often, with a lot of power to make sure you can provide the punch expected for a metal band) and feel Lars is often unfairly criticised for the band he is in (his drumming isn't necessarily bad, it's just not great by thrash metal standards, which are actually very high standards when you think about what the average thrash metal drummer has to do in a typical song...on a technical level, I'd say that he's not quite into the level of most metal drummers (and most thrash metal drummers could probably outplay Lars without any real difficulties), but he is better than a lot of typical rock drummers in that he will rarely stick with just keeping a beat for the song and at least tries to provide an interesting performance behind the kit which can make paying attention to what he's doing worth it), I will admit that I was expecting a disaster area due to the fact that having a drummer mess up will often mess up everyone else as well. But Lars was, surprisingly, rather good! I wouldn't say he quite matches up to himself on record anyway in the show, but he managed to get through the performance without any real mess ups that I could notice and his double bass technique was a lot stronger than I think people were expecting it to be. I suppose my big concern is that, if this is considered to be one of Lars' best performances in a good while, it's not impossible that he stepped up only for this show and will get noticeably worse in the future. If I could send a message to Lars, I would encourage him to aim to match this standard of drumming from now on (either through practice or doing a bit more warming up before the show) and MAYBE break up the thrash drumming a bit by placing a few less complex songs in between the really difficult ones. It works for Dani Loble of Helloween (and Andi Deris, come to think of it), as it basically allows the guy to rest up a bit with something he can do without any difficulty before he has to go all out on songs like, say, "Kill It" or "Long Live The King".
Kirk Hammett
Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous about Kirk's guitar playing in advance of watching the performance, as I knew the guy had been getting back in touch with his thrash roots (playing shows with Exodus and Death Angel over the last two years will do that to you) and, well, I kind of like how he plays lead guitar (although the fact my knowledge of the guitar is literally just "Three chords and it looks like a guitar" may have something to do with that...). Like Lars, I find Kirk is often unfairly criticised, being perceived by many as a bad guitarist who gets by through doing the same thing with his solos every time (or through ripping off Dave Mustaine, depending on who you ask...). Which may or may not be true (again, I have limited knowledge of how to play the guitar and I do not wish to get into an argument with people about this!), but that doesn't necessarily make his solos bad in and of themselves: thrash metal isn't exactly a genre which demands great technical ability, just an ability to play very quickly, and, in that aspect, Kirk is definitely not a bad lead guitarist. Unoriginal in the creation of his guitar solos? Yeah, that'd be fair. Outright bad? Erm...not really, no. On a technical level, I'd say his lead guitar playing is definitely a lot better than most hard rock lead guitarists and is definitely on par with what a lot of metal lead guitarists can do, if not better in quite a few cases. Anyway, soapbox moment over, I think he did a great job live. For the most part, he replicated his solos from the band's records very well and the few moments where he did slip up were within what I would consider acceptable for a live performance (so, a few minor hiccups that most people would have fairly written off). Again, however, comments indicate that this is one of Kirk's best performances in a while, so I fear that Kirk could slip back in the future. I really hope he doesn't, as his performance at Glastonbury was really good and actually has me kind of excited for the band's next album...just don't take until 2016 to get it done, as I'm still annoyed at having waited for it since I read news about a new album in 2011! Oh yeah, and please don't get Rubin involved in the production of it, too...sorry, moving on!
Robert Trujillo
The relative new boy to Metallica (he's been in the band since 2003), Rob has never really left an impression on me: I couldn't hear his bass at all on Death Magnetic thanks to the painfully loudly mastered production (thanks for that, Mr. Rubin...OK, OK, I'll stop!), I haven't listened to Beyond Magnetic much and I refuse to acknowledge that I ever listened to Lulu! So this was kind of my first chance to get a measure for Rob...and it still didn't leave me with much of one! For some reason, Rob's bass seemed rather quiet in the BBC iPlayer video, so I can't really say how well he did overall. Bear in mind, I was playing the video AND my laptop speakers at maximum and I was still struggling to hear him properly! Ah well, nitpick aside, he was fun to watch onstage and, when I did hear his bass, he did a fine job on it. No major complaints to make, but I would have liked the bass to have been louder!
So, what are my final thoughts on the show? Well, it was really, really good! A few minor complaints aside, it was just a great show that showed that, at least live, Metallica can bring it when they want to! If the band continue to match this standard on all of their following live shows and release a strong album in 2015 (with...you know where I'm going with that, so I'll stop there!), I reckon they'll still be going strong for at least a few more years! In terms of how their show will impact Glastonbury...I don't know. Part of me is wanting to say "This has broken down the doors, people: metal is coming to Glastonbury, and it'll rock it like a hurricane!", but another part of me suspects that Metallica are going to be known as the first and only metal band to ever play Glastonbury. Metal fans aren't exactly known for being open minded when it comes to a lot of the stuff that Glastonbury plays, so I suspect that metal fans aren't going to start suddenly flocking to Glastonbury and, as such, metal bands aren't likely to start being added because of an audience for them now being there. Throw in the typical people who make up the Glastonbury crowd and Metallica's appearance causing a lot of controversy among that crowd and I doubt another metal band will ever be invited. Maybe some of the people in the crowd will have been won over and encouraged to give hard rock and metal music a chance, but I fear that a large number of people will not have. And that's a huge shame, as Metallica's performance was brilliant! So, even though Metallica's performance is one for the history books, I suspect it will be all for naught in the long run.
But you know what?
If it was all for naught, then at least Metallica gave it their all and, in doing so, gave a performance that was fitting of their status as legends of metal. And that, at the end of the day, is all that the metal scene could have asked of them.
Final Rating: 9 Out Of 10
Saturday, 28 June 2014
Bakken "Death Of A Hero" Review
I'll be honest, this album has been one that I've been aware of for a while now. I first picked it up in early 2013 after reading a positive review for it, but I wasn't really impressed with it and, after a while, I deleted it off of my iPod and the computer.
And, up until recently, this band remained out of my mind. For various reasons, I never bothered to cast my mind back to this band. But then I was chatting to a member of an unsigned band who mentioned they were planning on making an effort to do some shows in the UK some time in the future and I found myself thinking "Hmm...I wonder who they might tour with?"
And my first thought...was Primitai, surprisingly!
Then I thought again and went "Hold on...what was that band from Ireland that I checked out ages ago?"
One quick google search later, I found Bakken again and figured "Well, why not get their album again for a review?" So, I downloaded their album off of bandcamp again (it's available on a pay what you want basis) and put it on.
Am I more impressed now than I was back then? Well, read on and find out!
Bakken are a relatively new power/thrash metal band from Belfast in Northern Ireland, forming in 2011. This album, their 2012 debut, appears to be their first release, from what I've seen, and the band's line up has been mostly consistent since they formed: drummer and backing vocalist Niall McGrotty, guitarist Mark-Anthony Mcgennis and guitarist/lead vocalist Simon Pickett have been together since the band formed and the band have so far only had one line up change, swapping from bassist Brian O'Kane (who played on this album) to bassist Adrian Stockman. They've mentioned an upcoming EP on their Facebook page, but I don't think it's finished yet, as it doesn't seem to be available anywhere yet.
First up, the cover. Well, I have to be honest, my ONLY real complaint is the colour scheme feels a bit too focused on the use of various shades of brown, as it can blend together a bit more than it should do. I think it might have benefitted from using a slightly wider variety of colours, as it might have made it more appealing to look at it. Other than that, though, I really like it! Sure, it's not exactly the most impressive cover, but, considering what you expect from a metal album, it manages to hit the spot perfectly between an old school mentality and a modern mentality. I really like the oncoming storm feeling of it, but the album title kind of gives you the idea that the storm is a tribute to a fallen hero. So, great work on the cover art, guys! Just please try to include a better colour scheme next time, I don't think that varying shades of brown is especially appealing to look at!
So, now that that is done, let's move to the actual music on the album.
One of the first things that will be noticed by most listeners is Simon's vocals. He sounds surprisingly like modern day James Hetfield (Metallica), but without the "HEY YEAH" verbal tic that's somewhat become his trademark and with a slightly different tone to his voice. I also think he sounds a bit like a slightly lower voiced Matt Heafy (Trivium), but this is likely to just be a case of shared singing influences, since Heafy is a huge fan of Metallica. There is still an aggressive edge to Simon's voice, but it's definitely not to the extent of Chuck Billy (Testament), Steve "Zetro" Souza (Exodus, Hatriot) or Dave Mustaine (Megadeth). I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think his very noticeable resemblance to Hetfield will hamper the band's chances of success outside of the metal underground scene (after all, being a Hetfield clone is not really an acceptable thing these days in the metal scene), so I would encourage Simon to try to find his own unique style within what he can do with his voice. If this is all he can do with his voice, then maybe taking a leaf from Helloween and finding another vocalist might be an idea worth looking in to? Simon isn't bad by any measure, but I fear that, without a distinctive voice to help them to stand out from the pack, they will get missed very easily.
The other performances across the album are pretty good, if somewhat standard by thrash and power metal standards: you don't see anything amazingly technical from the band, but their performances are strong enough for you to appreciate that the musicians have a reasonable degree of proficiency with their instruments. Niall's drumming manages to avoid completely falling into the cliche of "double bass assault" throughout the whole album, but I think a bit more variety in the drumming might have been a good idea, as he does tend to go for the double bass a bit more than he really should do. If Niall is reading this, may I suggest taking a few more cues from hard rock bands like Kiss and Led Zeppelin and try to encourage the guys to write one or two songs where you don't need to drum like a typical metal drummer all of the time? A few of those songs will help to give Bakken's next album more variety and showcase your drumming talents better than constantly using the double bass will. As much as this might sound like an insult to people with more drumming knowledge than me, look at Lars Ulrich's drumming in "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)": he mostly plays to the song and doesn't bring out the double bass on that song, and it arguably shows how versatile a drummer Lars can be when you compare his drumming there to on "Hit The Lights". There's nothing wrong with playing more simple drumming if it would benefit the song more than the expected style of drumming would, if you see the point I'm making!
The guitar work on the album is pretty much typical thrash metal guitar playing (with hints of Megadeth's more progressive touch...although definitely not to the extent of Heathen and Forbidden's brand of progressive thrash!), so you pretty much know what to expect there if you've heard any of Metallica or Megadeth's 80's albums. However, there's also a more melodic edge to their style of playing that makes me think a bit of early Helloween and some US power metal a la Jag Panzer, Iced Earth (well, when Schaffer isn't pulling out the iconic Iced Earth riff that's pretty much Steve Harris' bass triplets replicated on the guitar...) and Skullview (and the number of people who are going to know who they are is probably smaller than the population of Soay...I would explain where Soay is, but I have a feeling that most people would be staring at this review as if I'd suddenly swapped to speaking in Greek if I did, so I'll just say it's not far from Skye and let you guys google it (and Skullview) in your free time. And yes, I have actually been there!). I'd say this gives them a slight edge that a lot of typical thrash metal bands don't seem to have, as it can be tough to play melodically and quickly at the same time without it all starting to blend together into a large mess of noise and this awareness of melody gives them a way to sound distinctive without necessarily sacrificing anything.
The bass...well, it's mostly just there. I've not really noticed it much during my listens to the album, but, when I have noticed it, it's been well played. I wouldn't say Brian O'Kane is on the level of Cliff Burton by any measure, though. Mind you, Burton was a legendary bassist, so I guess that's not really a fair comparison. He doesn't seem to completely suffer from the usual issue that a lot of bassists do of just following the guitars, but I don't hear him doing anything really distinctive a lot of the time. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to hear a bassist in a modern band (and not one with a strong progressive lean, either!) who is willing to be adventurous with their playing and is capable of actually having a commanding presence in the mix of their album, as it does get dull to hear bassists who mostly seem to think that they have to follow the guitars to fit in with the song. Which isn't true: you just need to put some time into writing your bass line to make sure it isn't clashing with the chord that the guitars are playing and still fits in with what the song is going for (to give a rather drastic example, you shouldn't start playing bass as if you're on a Motown record when you're part of a death metal band!).
The band's sound is pretty much how I described the guitar playing: mostly 80's thrash based, but with a more melodic touch to it and a hint of a progressive lean that will bring Metallica or Megadeth to mind. I would kind of like to see the band explore this more melodic part on their sound more than they do across the album: the only time they really go all out with it is on "Back To The Future" (which, sadly, is not about the film series...), which is one of my favourite tracks on the album! The most thrash focused track is another favourite of mine, "The Cursed", so this criticism isn't intended to say that the band can't write good thrash metal: they can! I just think it might be interesting to see the band explore some stuff more like what they were doing on "Back To The Future" in the future, as I think they're starting to find something interesting with that and, with a bit of work to combine that more with their thrash sound (and maybe a bit of influence from Irish folk music? OK, I'm probably one of a small number of people hoping for the band to do that, but I love Irish folk music when I'm not listening to metal and I think that older sound might help them to find their own unique sound more! The start of "Get Back To Your Feet" had a feel to it that I think could have been better realised with some folk influence to it and "Sasquatch" has a lead guitar moment that brings to mind some Irish folk influences...although it's not impossible that the band were taking influence from Gary Moore and not Irish folk music there!), I think they could start to find their own sound much better. If they do want to do this, I think Simon's voice could turn from being a potential hinderance into an asset: very few power metal vocalists sound like James Hetfield and, with a sound that mixes power metal and thrash metal (and a bit of Irish folk? I know, I can dream...) with a slight progressive lean, I reckon the band could very easily throw off the potential Metallica/Megadeth clone accusations. At the moment, the accusations, while not entirely fair due to Bakken's more melodic lean, are unfortunately not completely without merit. While there is nothing particularly wrong with sounding like Metallica meets Megadeth (heck, a lot of metal fans probably will want to see that!), I personally think that it might be wise for Bakken to better incorporate the more melodic touch of their sound into the thrash backbone they have and try to do something more unique with it (hence the Irish folk suggestion, although that one is more to my personal preference than anything else, so a pinch of salt should be taken if Bakken are reading this: what I really like might not be what everyone else does!), as it would do them a lot more favours in the long run than sticking with a sound like the one on their debut.
The production is pretty much your modern thrash metal production: fairly clean (although Bakken do manage to get a bit of an old school feel to the production as well, which is certainly commendable!), a bit loud on the mastering (which, in my honest opinion, is a flaw in ANY album, but I can understand why it would work for thrash metal in particular: it's MEANT to be loud and fast, so a mastering job which suits that is perfect! Well, unless you do something like Death Magnetic or World Painted Blood, of course...), heavy on the guitars (to the point that Simon can sometimes get a bit lost in the mix when he's not singing at his loudest...although, to be fair, the guitar tone on this album is so good that I'm not too bothered by this one!) and suspiciously lacking in the bass guitar if you're not playing the album at the loudest (which, due to the mastering, is actually not a sensible idea for your ears). If you're OK with the production of most modern thrash albums, you'll probably be fine with this, but, if you're one of those people who prefer the old school feel of 80's thrash metal records and finds modern production ruins the final product, this is not going to win you over.
So, final thoughts? Well, Bakken have put out a rather solid (if slightly unoriginal) debut album in the form of Death Of A Hero, and I'm surprised I didn't realise how strong it was when I first got it! There are still areas of improvement in the band's sound and I feel they still have the potential to release a better album, but what they have provided so far is very enjoyable. I won't say that I expect Bakken to be huge in the future, but I feel a bit like I'm looking at the modern day version of Helloween's Walls Of Jericho here: what they've provided is really good, but I have a feeling that what they release next, if they do take the time to develop their sound more, could be even better!
...So, no pressure, guys: I just compared your debut album to that of Helloween's debut! Just promise me that you'll try to make sure your next album is more like your Keeper Of The Seven Keys and less like your Chameleon, OK?
Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10
A very good debut that shows a band who still have room to grow. It's worth keeping an eye on these guys if you're interested in thrash and power metal, as I have a feeling they could go on to do great things!
Personal Favourite Tracks: "The Cursed", "Back To The Future"
(Link to the band's bandcamp page, if you wish to download the album: http://bakken1.bandcamp.com/)
And, up until recently, this band remained out of my mind. For various reasons, I never bothered to cast my mind back to this band. But then I was chatting to a member of an unsigned band who mentioned they were planning on making an effort to do some shows in the UK some time in the future and I found myself thinking "Hmm...I wonder who they might tour with?"
And my first thought...was Primitai, surprisingly!
Then I thought again and went "Hold on...what was that band from Ireland that I checked out ages ago?"
One quick google search later, I found Bakken again and figured "Well, why not get their album again for a review?" So, I downloaded their album off of bandcamp again (it's available on a pay what you want basis) and put it on.
Am I more impressed now than I was back then? Well, read on and find out!
Bakken are a relatively new power/thrash metal band from Belfast in Northern Ireland, forming in 2011. This album, their 2012 debut, appears to be their first release, from what I've seen, and the band's line up has been mostly consistent since they formed: drummer and backing vocalist Niall McGrotty, guitarist Mark-Anthony Mcgennis and guitarist/lead vocalist Simon Pickett have been together since the band formed and the band have so far only had one line up change, swapping from bassist Brian O'Kane (who played on this album) to bassist Adrian Stockman. They've mentioned an upcoming EP on their Facebook page, but I don't think it's finished yet, as it doesn't seem to be available anywhere yet.
First up, the cover. Well, I have to be honest, my ONLY real complaint is the colour scheme feels a bit too focused on the use of various shades of brown, as it can blend together a bit more than it should do. I think it might have benefitted from using a slightly wider variety of colours, as it might have made it more appealing to look at it. Other than that, though, I really like it! Sure, it's not exactly the most impressive cover, but, considering what you expect from a metal album, it manages to hit the spot perfectly between an old school mentality and a modern mentality. I really like the oncoming storm feeling of it, but the album title kind of gives you the idea that the storm is a tribute to a fallen hero. So, great work on the cover art, guys! Just please try to include a better colour scheme next time, I don't think that varying shades of brown is especially appealing to look at!
So, now that that is done, let's move to the actual music on the album.
One of the first things that will be noticed by most listeners is Simon's vocals. He sounds surprisingly like modern day James Hetfield (Metallica), but without the "HEY YEAH" verbal tic that's somewhat become his trademark and with a slightly different tone to his voice. I also think he sounds a bit like a slightly lower voiced Matt Heafy (Trivium), but this is likely to just be a case of shared singing influences, since Heafy is a huge fan of Metallica. There is still an aggressive edge to Simon's voice, but it's definitely not to the extent of Chuck Billy (Testament), Steve "Zetro" Souza (Exodus, Hatriot) or Dave Mustaine (Megadeth). I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad thing, but I think his very noticeable resemblance to Hetfield will hamper the band's chances of success outside of the metal underground scene (after all, being a Hetfield clone is not really an acceptable thing these days in the metal scene), so I would encourage Simon to try to find his own unique style within what he can do with his voice. If this is all he can do with his voice, then maybe taking a leaf from Helloween and finding another vocalist might be an idea worth looking in to? Simon isn't bad by any measure, but I fear that, without a distinctive voice to help them to stand out from the pack, they will get missed very easily.
The other performances across the album are pretty good, if somewhat standard by thrash and power metal standards: you don't see anything amazingly technical from the band, but their performances are strong enough for you to appreciate that the musicians have a reasonable degree of proficiency with their instruments. Niall's drumming manages to avoid completely falling into the cliche of "double bass assault" throughout the whole album, but I think a bit more variety in the drumming might have been a good idea, as he does tend to go for the double bass a bit more than he really should do. If Niall is reading this, may I suggest taking a few more cues from hard rock bands like Kiss and Led Zeppelin and try to encourage the guys to write one or two songs where you don't need to drum like a typical metal drummer all of the time? A few of those songs will help to give Bakken's next album more variety and showcase your drumming talents better than constantly using the double bass will. As much as this might sound like an insult to people with more drumming knowledge than me, look at Lars Ulrich's drumming in "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)": he mostly plays to the song and doesn't bring out the double bass on that song, and it arguably shows how versatile a drummer Lars can be when you compare his drumming there to on "Hit The Lights". There's nothing wrong with playing more simple drumming if it would benefit the song more than the expected style of drumming would, if you see the point I'm making!
The guitar work on the album is pretty much typical thrash metal guitar playing (with hints of Megadeth's more progressive touch...although definitely not to the extent of Heathen and Forbidden's brand of progressive thrash!), so you pretty much know what to expect there if you've heard any of Metallica or Megadeth's 80's albums. However, there's also a more melodic edge to their style of playing that makes me think a bit of early Helloween and some US power metal a la Jag Panzer, Iced Earth (well, when Schaffer isn't pulling out the iconic Iced Earth riff that's pretty much Steve Harris' bass triplets replicated on the guitar...) and Skullview (and the number of people who are going to know who they are is probably smaller than the population of Soay...I would explain where Soay is, but I have a feeling that most people would be staring at this review as if I'd suddenly swapped to speaking in Greek if I did, so I'll just say it's not far from Skye and let you guys google it (and Skullview) in your free time. And yes, I have actually been there!). I'd say this gives them a slight edge that a lot of typical thrash metal bands don't seem to have, as it can be tough to play melodically and quickly at the same time without it all starting to blend together into a large mess of noise and this awareness of melody gives them a way to sound distinctive without necessarily sacrificing anything.
The bass...well, it's mostly just there. I've not really noticed it much during my listens to the album, but, when I have noticed it, it's been well played. I wouldn't say Brian O'Kane is on the level of Cliff Burton by any measure, though. Mind you, Burton was a legendary bassist, so I guess that's not really a fair comparison. He doesn't seem to completely suffer from the usual issue that a lot of bassists do of just following the guitars, but I don't hear him doing anything really distinctive a lot of the time. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to hear a bassist in a modern band (and not one with a strong progressive lean, either!) who is willing to be adventurous with their playing and is capable of actually having a commanding presence in the mix of their album, as it does get dull to hear bassists who mostly seem to think that they have to follow the guitars to fit in with the song. Which isn't true: you just need to put some time into writing your bass line to make sure it isn't clashing with the chord that the guitars are playing and still fits in with what the song is going for (to give a rather drastic example, you shouldn't start playing bass as if you're on a Motown record when you're part of a death metal band!).
The band's sound is pretty much how I described the guitar playing: mostly 80's thrash based, but with a more melodic touch to it and a hint of a progressive lean that will bring Metallica or Megadeth to mind. I would kind of like to see the band explore this more melodic part on their sound more than they do across the album: the only time they really go all out with it is on "Back To The Future" (which, sadly, is not about the film series...), which is one of my favourite tracks on the album! The most thrash focused track is another favourite of mine, "The Cursed", so this criticism isn't intended to say that the band can't write good thrash metal: they can! I just think it might be interesting to see the band explore some stuff more like what they were doing on "Back To The Future" in the future, as I think they're starting to find something interesting with that and, with a bit of work to combine that more with their thrash sound (and maybe a bit of influence from Irish folk music? OK, I'm probably one of a small number of people hoping for the band to do that, but I love Irish folk music when I'm not listening to metal and I think that older sound might help them to find their own unique sound more! The start of "Get Back To Your Feet" had a feel to it that I think could have been better realised with some folk influence to it and "Sasquatch" has a lead guitar moment that brings to mind some Irish folk influences...although it's not impossible that the band were taking influence from Gary Moore and not Irish folk music there!), I think they could start to find their own sound much better. If they do want to do this, I think Simon's voice could turn from being a potential hinderance into an asset: very few power metal vocalists sound like James Hetfield and, with a sound that mixes power metal and thrash metal (and a bit of Irish folk? I know, I can dream...) with a slight progressive lean, I reckon the band could very easily throw off the potential Metallica/Megadeth clone accusations. At the moment, the accusations, while not entirely fair due to Bakken's more melodic lean, are unfortunately not completely without merit. While there is nothing particularly wrong with sounding like Metallica meets Megadeth (heck, a lot of metal fans probably will want to see that!), I personally think that it might be wise for Bakken to better incorporate the more melodic touch of their sound into the thrash backbone they have and try to do something more unique with it (hence the Irish folk suggestion, although that one is more to my personal preference than anything else, so a pinch of salt should be taken if Bakken are reading this: what I really like might not be what everyone else does!), as it would do them a lot more favours in the long run than sticking with a sound like the one on their debut.
The production is pretty much your modern thrash metal production: fairly clean (although Bakken do manage to get a bit of an old school feel to the production as well, which is certainly commendable!), a bit loud on the mastering (which, in my honest opinion, is a flaw in ANY album, but I can understand why it would work for thrash metal in particular: it's MEANT to be loud and fast, so a mastering job which suits that is perfect! Well, unless you do something like Death Magnetic or World Painted Blood, of course...), heavy on the guitars (to the point that Simon can sometimes get a bit lost in the mix when he's not singing at his loudest...although, to be fair, the guitar tone on this album is so good that I'm not too bothered by this one!) and suspiciously lacking in the bass guitar if you're not playing the album at the loudest (which, due to the mastering, is actually not a sensible idea for your ears). If you're OK with the production of most modern thrash albums, you'll probably be fine with this, but, if you're one of those people who prefer the old school feel of 80's thrash metal records and finds modern production ruins the final product, this is not going to win you over.
So, final thoughts? Well, Bakken have put out a rather solid (if slightly unoriginal) debut album in the form of Death Of A Hero, and I'm surprised I didn't realise how strong it was when I first got it! There are still areas of improvement in the band's sound and I feel they still have the potential to release a better album, but what they have provided so far is very enjoyable. I won't say that I expect Bakken to be huge in the future, but I feel a bit like I'm looking at the modern day version of Helloween's Walls Of Jericho here: what they've provided is really good, but I have a feeling that what they release next, if they do take the time to develop their sound more, could be even better!
...So, no pressure, guys: I just compared your debut album to that of Helloween's debut! Just promise me that you'll try to make sure your next album is more like your Keeper Of The Seven Keys and less like your Chameleon, OK?
Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10
A very good debut that shows a band who still have room to grow. It's worth keeping an eye on these guys if you're interested in thrash and power metal, as I have a feeling they could go on to do great things!
Personal Favourite Tracks: "The Cursed", "Back To The Future"
(Link to the band's bandcamp page, if you wish to download the album: http://bakken1.bandcamp.com/)
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
The Singles Collection: "Armorist" by Overkill
FUCK ME!
*Cough*
Sorry about that. This is going to require some context...
Overkill are a HIGHLY respected thrash metal band from New Jersey who have been going since 1980. They have been rather prolific, to put it mildly: White Devil Armoury, the album this track is from, is going to be their seventeenth studio album (or eighteen, depending on whether you count their debut EP as a full release or no: the band do, but I don't, as I count albums as full releases, not EPs). For reference, no other thrash metal band, to my knowledge, has managed to reach seventeen studio albums: the second highest record, to my knowledge, is sixteen albums, currently held (as of this week: their new album literally came out yesterday in the UK!) by the German beer metal thrashers (basically, thrash metal with lyrics relating to beer) Tankard. The third highest record, to my knowledge, is fourteen albums, currently held by both Megadeth and Sodom (although Megadeth may very well take the record away from Sodom: they're currently working on material for their fifteenth album, although I suspect we won't be seeing that until mid-2015 at the earliest...). Several thrash bands have made it into the double figures, but, at the rate they are going, Overkill might be the first to make it to twenty studio albums.
And, for the most part, I don't get how Overkill have made it this far and gained the acclaim they have.
I have listened to the band's last two albums (Ironbound and The Electric Age) as many times as I can, but, despite the thrash metal scene in general reacting to them as if they are the second coming of thrash metal jesus, my only thought has generally been "It's not bad...but why's everyone losing their shit over this?" To me, those albums, while certainly among the most ferocious and aggressive thrash metal to have appeared in a good while without mixing in influence from death metal, just lacked in solid hooks for the songs. Which might be it: thrash metal fans aren't exactly known for being friendly to stuff with anything resembling a hook, which is somewhat daft logic when you realise that every song needs a hook to be memorable, even if it's not a traditionally catchy hook in the sense of being poppy...
But I'm getting off topic.
Because of my generally unimpressed reaction to the band's last two albums, I was vaguely expecting this album to be along the same lines. I thought this album would be just another of those albums which I keep an eye on hoping to see the band drop the ball and get turned upon by the notoriously unforgiving thrash metal crowd (seriously, guys, how long are you going to hold everyone in the Big 4 except for Slayer in contempt just for releasing an album that wasn't an all out thrash album while letting less well known bands get off scot free for doing the same kind of thing? It pisses me off every time I see you do it, have some fucking consistency when you give bands scorn for doing stuff!), later see everyone else get excited over it and triumph it as a new classic, roll my eyes, try to explain to anyone willing to listen to me that speed and ferocity isn't everything in metal music, usually bringing up Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as fine examples of bands who prove the thrash crowd wrong, then go find someone else to talk to because the thrashers treat me as a dumb idiot just because I'm actually pointing out something that is true (case of point, doom metal: think Black Sabbath with less blues influence to their sound and you pretty much have summed up the whole doom metal genre).
Then I heard this track.
...I refer you back to my opening sentiments.
Let's start with the link to the lyric video. As the music video is set to unlisted, I can't directly provide the video here, so I shall provide a link here. Seriously, music labels, stop making your lyric videos and music videos unlisted, it makes it look like you're trying to prevent an album from being promoted and gets people like me worried that the album is not actually a good album because you look like you're trying to hide it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZD8VIyj95Q
Anyway, let's look at the song itself!
As I mentioned earlier, Overkill's had a habit of writing really ferocious and aggressive thrash metal for a while now, so you'll be rather unsurprised to know that they keep this habit up nicely here. They do seem to lean a bit too close towards the cliche in modern day thrash metal of double bass abuse with the drumming on this song, but I'm usually not one to complain about this unless it's done over the course of a whole album, so I am hesitant to say that this is a big issue with me at the minute due to it only being one song. If this is a sign of the typical drumming on the album, then I see this being an issue when the album actually comes out, but, for the one song, it's perfectly fine, if a bit of a cliche. Seriously, let's look at the checklist for writing modern thrash metal: double bass drumming (check), bass guitar that mostly follows the guitars, but is played quickly (...nope, not here!), fast played, uncomplex guitar riffs (...eh, kind of) and vocals in the vein of Chuck Billy, Paul Baloff or Tom Araya (HELL NO).
That's the thing that surprises me, when you consider my previously mentioned dislike of Overkill: it's hard to say that Overkill do anything especially typical for thrash standards, as they actually don't! They're a more punk influence take on thrash metal, but not in the same way that leads to crossover thrash metal: it's just the band wears their punk influence on their sleeves in a way that is ever present across their sound, but the band injects it into the typical thrash sound in a way that...I can't quite put it in a way that will describe Overkill's sound very well, so let me put it this way: Motorhead were basically the genesis of speed metal, but they did it through basically playing heavily downtuned and distorted punk and rock n roll. Overkill are basically Motorhead if they had upped the ferocity, added more metal influences to their sound and got a more punk influenced Brian Johnson soundalike to sing instead of Lemmy.
...Huh, that's actually not a bad way to describe Overkill, now I think on it. Why do I not like these guys again, that sounds awesome on paper!
Oh yeah...they don't write great hooks for their songs. Shame, that would be a really...wait, the hook on this song is actually really good? As in, actually memorable on first listen? HALLELUJAH! THRASH JESUS, I HEAR YOU CALLING!
*Cough*
Sorry about that.
But seriously, the issue I mentioned earlier about the band not writing strong hooks? You'd not think it if you heard this track: it's got a pretty awesome chorus! You could sing it pretty easily after the first listen through of the song.
Since I think I need to stop sounding like I'm gushing about these guys, let me step back a bit and admit that there are a few issues with the song which I need to point out. The first is the lyrics: they're not exactly shining examples of lyrical brilliance. It's probably excusable due to the fact that thrash metal generally isn't known for having brilliant lyrics (heck, metal in general isn't known for having brilliant lyrics), but Overkill probably provide one of the weirdest bits of lyrics from an 80's metal band I can think of, as they resort to using initials in the pre-chorus that will sound suspiciously like text speak for stuff (I'm probably safe in assuming "G D M F" stands for "God Damn Mother Fucking", but "G D M" on it's own? In the context of the song's lyrics and the absence of the "F", I'm not entirely sure what the "M" must stand for, as "God Damn Mother" doesn't sound right and I can't think of another "M" word that fits in the context of the lyrics...anyone willing to explain that one for me? Also, YOU'RE A THRASH METAL BAND! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CENSORING YOURSELF WITH TEXT SPEAK?). I know text speak is a part of modern day society in the same way that having a porcupine stuck up your arse for several years would become a typical part of your everyday life, but this feels like a really odd concession for a band who were around before mobile phones were (yes, younger readers, there was a time when mobile phones did not exist. We also had the wonders of cassettes, tape players, the VHS and dial up connection internet when I was growing up...you don't know how lucky you are to have grown up with downloads, CD players, Blu-Ray and wireless internet, it's a hell of a lot more convenient by comparison!) and kind of has me wondering whether the band wanted to put something else down for the lyrics, but changed them at the last minute. Either that or somebody involved in the songwriting in the band has been listening to too much modern music...
The second is Blitz's vocals. I gotta be honest, his vocals are a love it or hate it kind of thing in much the same was as Steve Souza's are, and I'm mostly on the hate it side. No offence intended, but I don't find higher voices suit thrash metal very well, ESPECIALLY when they are somewhat nasal as well. While I can enjoy Blitz's vocals when I'm in the right mood, they usually just grate on my nerves. That said, I will give Overkill credit for the fact that I can't think of anyone else who I would want to hear singing their stuff (I don't see Chuck Billy making Overkill better, if you get the point I'm making), so credit to the band for making Blitz's vocals actually fit their sound instead of just writing something that any thrash vocalist could sing. Exodus could learn a thing or two about doing this...
The third is the production. This has been a bit of a recurring problem on the previous two Overkill albums, but, for the benefit of those not aware of it, I'll explain: the production sounds suspiciously mechanical. With Ironbound, it actually worked due to the title track being from the perspective of mechanical killers and the production gave the album a rather cold feel to it that was actually rather fitting. But, despite dialling it back since then, it's not been dialled back enough to stop you from noticing it. Which isn't a big issue, but it will be a problem if you aren't a fan of modern production.
Those issues, luckily, don't impact the song itself much, which, as I've mentioned earlier, is actually pretty good! I wouldn't call this a flawless song at all, but, if you're into thrash metal, this should be a track you'll really enjoy! If not...well, it depends on what you usually listen to, but I'd say this is worth a shot if your taste in music does point towards potential interest in thrash metal music (so, punk, faster styles of metal and stuff like that) and probably not if it isn't (so, folk, country, pop, opera, rap...).
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
A really good song that is only let down by a few relatively minor flaws. Thrash metal fans should really like this and metal fans in general are encouraged to give this a shot. If you're not a metal fan, then...well, first, why did you read this review, with all due respect? And you're advised to skip this one!
*Cough*
Sorry about that. This is going to require some context...
Overkill are a HIGHLY respected thrash metal band from New Jersey who have been going since 1980. They have been rather prolific, to put it mildly: White Devil Armoury, the album this track is from, is going to be their seventeenth studio album (or eighteen, depending on whether you count their debut EP as a full release or no: the band do, but I don't, as I count albums as full releases, not EPs). For reference, no other thrash metal band, to my knowledge, has managed to reach seventeen studio albums: the second highest record, to my knowledge, is sixteen albums, currently held (as of this week: their new album literally came out yesterday in the UK!) by the German beer metal thrashers (basically, thrash metal with lyrics relating to beer) Tankard. The third highest record, to my knowledge, is fourteen albums, currently held by both Megadeth and Sodom (although Megadeth may very well take the record away from Sodom: they're currently working on material for their fifteenth album, although I suspect we won't be seeing that until mid-2015 at the earliest...). Several thrash bands have made it into the double figures, but, at the rate they are going, Overkill might be the first to make it to twenty studio albums.
And, for the most part, I don't get how Overkill have made it this far and gained the acclaim they have.
I have listened to the band's last two albums (Ironbound and The Electric Age) as many times as I can, but, despite the thrash metal scene in general reacting to them as if they are the second coming of thrash metal jesus, my only thought has generally been "It's not bad...but why's everyone losing their shit over this?" To me, those albums, while certainly among the most ferocious and aggressive thrash metal to have appeared in a good while without mixing in influence from death metal, just lacked in solid hooks for the songs. Which might be it: thrash metal fans aren't exactly known for being friendly to stuff with anything resembling a hook, which is somewhat daft logic when you realise that every song needs a hook to be memorable, even if it's not a traditionally catchy hook in the sense of being poppy...
But I'm getting off topic.
Because of my generally unimpressed reaction to the band's last two albums, I was vaguely expecting this album to be along the same lines. I thought this album would be just another of those albums which I keep an eye on hoping to see the band drop the ball and get turned upon by the notoriously unforgiving thrash metal crowd (seriously, guys, how long are you going to hold everyone in the Big 4 except for Slayer in contempt just for releasing an album that wasn't an all out thrash album while letting less well known bands get off scot free for doing the same kind of thing? It pisses me off every time I see you do it, have some fucking consistency when you give bands scorn for doing stuff!), later see everyone else get excited over it and triumph it as a new classic, roll my eyes, try to explain to anyone willing to listen to me that speed and ferocity isn't everything in metal music, usually bringing up Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as fine examples of bands who prove the thrash crowd wrong, then go find someone else to talk to because the thrashers treat me as a dumb idiot just because I'm actually pointing out something that is true (case of point, doom metal: think Black Sabbath with less blues influence to their sound and you pretty much have summed up the whole doom metal genre).
Then I heard this track.
...I refer you back to my opening sentiments.
Let's start with the link to the lyric video. As the music video is set to unlisted, I can't directly provide the video here, so I shall provide a link here. Seriously, music labels, stop making your lyric videos and music videos unlisted, it makes it look like you're trying to prevent an album from being promoted and gets people like me worried that the album is not actually a good album because you look like you're trying to hide it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZD8VIyj95Q
Anyway, let's look at the song itself!
As I mentioned earlier, Overkill's had a habit of writing really ferocious and aggressive thrash metal for a while now, so you'll be rather unsurprised to know that they keep this habit up nicely here. They do seem to lean a bit too close towards the cliche in modern day thrash metal of double bass abuse with the drumming on this song, but I'm usually not one to complain about this unless it's done over the course of a whole album, so I am hesitant to say that this is a big issue with me at the minute due to it only being one song. If this is a sign of the typical drumming on the album, then I see this being an issue when the album actually comes out, but, for the one song, it's perfectly fine, if a bit of a cliche. Seriously, let's look at the checklist for writing modern thrash metal: double bass drumming (check), bass guitar that mostly follows the guitars, but is played quickly (...nope, not here!), fast played, uncomplex guitar riffs (...eh, kind of) and vocals in the vein of Chuck Billy, Paul Baloff or Tom Araya (HELL NO).
That's the thing that surprises me, when you consider my previously mentioned dislike of Overkill: it's hard to say that Overkill do anything especially typical for thrash standards, as they actually don't! They're a more punk influence take on thrash metal, but not in the same way that leads to crossover thrash metal: it's just the band wears their punk influence on their sleeves in a way that is ever present across their sound, but the band injects it into the typical thrash sound in a way that...I can't quite put it in a way that will describe Overkill's sound very well, so let me put it this way: Motorhead were basically the genesis of speed metal, but they did it through basically playing heavily downtuned and distorted punk and rock n roll. Overkill are basically Motorhead if they had upped the ferocity, added more metal influences to their sound and got a more punk influenced Brian Johnson soundalike to sing instead of Lemmy.
...Huh, that's actually not a bad way to describe Overkill, now I think on it. Why do I not like these guys again, that sounds awesome on paper!
Oh yeah...they don't write great hooks for their songs. Shame, that would be a really...wait, the hook on this song is actually really good? As in, actually memorable on first listen? HALLELUJAH! THRASH JESUS, I HEAR YOU CALLING!
*Cough*
Sorry about that.
But seriously, the issue I mentioned earlier about the band not writing strong hooks? You'd not think it if you heard this track: it's got a pretty awesome chorus! You could sing it pretty easily after the first listen through of the song.
Since I think I need to stop sounding like I'm gushing about these guys, let me step back a bit and admit that there are a few issues with the song which I need to point out. The first is the lyrics: they're not exactly shining examples of lyrical brilliance. It's probably excusable due to the fact that thrash metal generally isn't known for having brilliant lyrics (heck, metal in general isn't known for having brilliant lyrics), but Overkill probably provide one of the weirdest bits of lyrics from an 80's metal band I can think of, as they resort to using initials in the pre-chorus that will sound suspiciously like text speak for stuff (I'm probably safe in assuming "G D M F" stands for "God Damn Mother Fucking", but "G D M" on it's own? In the context of the song's lyrics and the absence of the "F", I'm not entirely sure what the "M" must stand for, as "God Damn Mother" doesn't sound right and I can't think of another "M" word that fits in the context of the lyrics...anyone willing to explain that one for me? Also, YOU'RE A THRASH METAL BAND! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CENSORING YOURSELF WITH TEXT SPEAK?). I know text speak is a part of modern day society in the same way that having a porcupine stuck up your arse for several years would become a typical part of your everyday life, but this feels like a really odd concession for a band who were around before mobile phones were (yes, younger readers, there was a time when mobile phones did not exist. We also had the wonders of cassettes, tape players, the VHS and dial up connection internet when I was growing up...you don't know how lucky you are to have grown up with downloads, CD players, Blu-Ray and wireless internet, it's a hell of a lot more convenient by comparison!) and kind of has me wondering whether the band wanted to put something else down for the lyrics, but changed them at the last minute. Either that or somebody involved in the songwriting in the band has been listening to too much modern music...
The second is Blitz's vocals. I gotta be honest, his vocals are a love it or hate it kind of thing in much the same was as Steve Souza's are, and I'm mostly on the hate it side. No offence intended, but I don't find higher voices suit thrash metal very well, ESPECIALLY when they are somewhat nasal as well. While I can enjoy Blitz's vocals when I'm in the right mood, they usually just grate on my nerves. That said, I will give Overkill credit for the fact that I can't think of anyone else who I would want to hear singing their stuff (I don't see Chuck Billy making Overkill better, if you get the point I'm making), so credit to the band for making Blitz's vocals actually fit their sound instead of just writing something that any thrash vocalist could sing. Exodus could learn a thing or two about doing this...
The third is the production. This has been a bit of a recurring problem on the previous two Overkill albums, but, for the benefit of those not aware of it, I'll explain: the production sounds suspiciously mechanical. With Ironbound, it actually worked due to the title track being from the perspective of mechanical killers and the production gave the album a rather cold feel to it that was actually rather fitting. But, despite dialling it back since then, it's not been dialled back enough to stop you from noticing it. Which isn't a big issue, but it will be a problem if you aren't a fan of modern production.
Those issues, luckily, don't impact the song itself much, which, as I've mentioned earlier, is actually pretty good! I wouldn't call this a flawless song at all, but, if you're into thrash metal, this should be a track you'll really enjoy! If not...well, it depends on what you usually listen to, but I'd say this is worth a shot if your taste in music does point towards potential interest in thrash metal music (so, punk, faster styles of metal and stuff like that) and probably not if it isn't (so, folk, country, pop, opera, rap...).
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
A really good song that is only let down by a few relatively minor flaws. Thrash metal fans should really like this and metal fans in general are encouraged to give this a shot. If you're not a metal fan, then...well, first, why did you read this review, with all due respect? And you're advised to skip this one!
Monday, 23 June 2014
Oddworld Inhabitants "Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD" Review
I figured I'd try something a little different. See, I quite enjoy writing about music, but I do find that not having other stuff to talk about does mean that it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm, especially when I have half a dozen albums which I keep making vague motions towards reviewing and have to look at my collection of albums to review which is now covering my armchair and bed. But I don't have a large collection of books with me (...well, I do, but not where I currently live!), my knowledge of films is rather poor (which is kind of ironic, when you consider that I'm an unofficially retired actor...although I am still interested in acting and would happily act in something if a request came my way which would require me to, not to mention that I do want to do internet work which requires me to portray a character, so my retirement is more like "I'm not actively looking for acting work, but I will consider doing it if directly requested by someone and, if I come up with a character who I feel would be worth including in one of my projects, I will portray the character unless I have a valid reason not to"...I know, that's not really an effective retirement, hence why I said "unofficially retired"!), I don't watch a lot of TV at the minute and I try to avoid talking about serious topics like politics, religion and various industries because I know that kind of stuff is usually a hot topic for a lot of people and I would prefer to let people live and live on that one without having to read my speculations on this kind of stuff, especially considering I'm not hugely interested in those topics myself.
So, due to having nothing else I can really talk about, here's my first ever video game review!
Oddworld Inhabitants are probably one of the first companies I ever remember seeing a game by. Back when I was a young kid, I vaguely remembered seeing a section of a cutscene from a game that I thought looked interesting. For some reason, I never made a note of what the game was and I went on my merry way. Yet I never forgot that cutscene and it was nearly fifteen years later (specifically, earlier this year) when I finally found out what game the cutscene was from: Abe's Exoddus. I was happy to find that out, but I figured that I'd never see the game again, as I didn't have a PS1 and I didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time to pay what I assumed was going to be a huge amount to get the game, but then PSN came to the rescue and I happily downloaded the Oddboxx, which contains all of the Oddworld games, and started playing the first game in the series, Abe's Oddysse.
And proceeded to get my ass handed to me.
Brutally.
Repeatedly.
After a few hours of playing, however, I got accustomed to the difficulty spike and was fine...up until the next zone, where it felt like I'd gone back to square one.
I've still not finished Abe's Oddysse now, to be honest. I suspect I must be somewhere past the halfway mark, as I've been through both temples and am currently on my way back into the factory, but, at the moment, I just don't know. I was originally going to go through Abe's Exoddus, then go through Munch's Oddysse and finally finish with Stranger's Wrath, but I got so tired of dying that I opted to skip forward to Munch's Oddysse to spare my controller from getting thrown through a window.
And I was kind of bored by it.
It isn't a bad game, but, at the time of writing, I'm about halfway through the game and I can't help feeling like the game is lacking some of the charm that made Abe's Oddysse so good. While the addition of Munch is a good idea on paper and he's not really a bad character in and of himself, his slow movement speed just makes playing him a chore (although, I will be fair, he does get better whenever he gets a wheelchair) and he's not really added a lot to the game so far. Maybe he becomes a much better character later on in the game, but, so far, he just leaves me unimpressed.
By contrast, I've adored Stranger's Wrath since I first started playing it.
Let me start by discussing the flaws of the game first. Firstly, The Oddworld games' habit of setting the difficulty dial up higher than they really should do is more reasonably handled than usual, but there are still a few moments where you will be getting frustrated at the challenge of the game. One bounty in particular (I won't say which one, but those of you who have played the game probably know which one I'm thinking of) will hand your ass to you quite easily if you only have Zappflies with you (although I wasn't in that position: I just didn't want to use them because I was trying to capture the target alive), so you are strongly advised to keep your more interesting types of ammo as full as you can before you get to the actual target and to not be shy about using them when you get to the battle if it will make things easier. This isn't the only instance with really high difficulty, but this is the one which I felt overdid it so much that I really have to bring it up as a warning for potential interested gamers. The difficulty, for the most part, is otherwise fine, if still high enough to challenge you throughout the game and encourage you to heal up whenever you can (which isn't a big problem, thanks to Stranger's ability to recover health by LITERALLY SHAKING IT OFF).
Secondly, while the story is well handled for the most part, I have to say that a lot of the first half of the game will have you wondering where the plot went. You start out delivering an outlaw that you've captured to a town and then you go and do some bounties while the plot basically waits for you to do that. After that, the plot does pick up, but you still spend a lot of time doing bounties up until about the middle part of the game (which, for the benefit of those who have not played the game, I will not spoil for you). After that, the game continues to gather even more momentum, to the extent that you'd be forgiven for wondering why the game opted to wait so long to start bring this story out. Maybe I just took too long to get to that point, I don't know...
The third is the voice acting. While, for the most part, it is very good (which is all the more impressive when you realise that a large amount of the voice acting is done by one man: Lorne Lanning, who is one of the co-founders of Oddworld Inhabitants), I cannot help saying that I find the voice acting on the Grubbs rather grating to listen to. It's not necessarily bad, but I can't help turning up the music I usually have on in the background whenever they start to speak. Luckily, they don't talk a huge amount over the course of the game, so you can call this a nitpick pretty comfortably!
Fourth, as much as I enjoy the game, there's not a lot of reasons to replay it once you beat it for the first time. To be fair, this is a problem with a lot of single player games that focus on telling a story and don't have multiple paths to take the story down to encourage replays, but you basically have no reason to play this game again once you beat it unless you really want to experience the story. Which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but, when you know what the twist is and then realise you have to spend about half of the game just to get back to it, you will probably have to fall back on the story of that half to get you there. And...well, you only need to read my second complaint to know that it isn't going to carry you back to the second part.
That's really about the only real issues I have with the game. Apart from that, you get a lot that is good at minimum!
First of all, the art style of the game is just wonderful to behold! If you're ever played an Oddworld game before now, you already know what to expect, but, if you haven't, then let me sum it up for you: highly creative character designs, a somewhat dark industrial look to the city buildings (mixed with a bit of what you might expect to see in a old Western film for this game) and beautiful open landscapes! Oddworld Inhabitants are probably best known for their great art style for their games (which makes it a huge shame that they've only released four original games since they were formed...), and this game certainly does not disappoint on that line!
Secondly, I really like the way the game combines play styles. By default, the game plays like a more typical third person action-adventure game, but, when you want to use Stranger's crossbow, it goes to a first person perspective rather like that of a FPS. Speaking as someone who is rather fond of these two types of games, I have to say that both styles are done very well indeed, to the extent that I'd actually say that it would be possible (if not a good idea: you can't run or punch in FPS mode and you can't shoot in default mode) to play the game in just one style if you really wanted to.
Thirdly, despite my complaint about the story taking more time than it really should to start coming together, I have to say that it's actually a pretty good story! I can't really talk about it much without spoiling some big twists, but I will say that, once the game starts picking, the story is easily one of the best stories I've seen in a game. True, it isn't necessarily an especially original story, but it's very well told and the twists will catch you off guard (which is why I'm not spoiling them in this review).
Fourthly, Stranger, while not the best protagonist the Oddworld series has provided us so far (that would be Abe), is a brilliant main character. He has a great design in general (although you might have a few questions post-first spoiler) and his catchphrase when he meets his bounties ("Dead 'r alive, yer ass is comin' with me") just reeks of the guy being a badass. And that's not covering the fact that he can literally shake off injuries to heal himself. If you want to get a good idea how to do a badass main character well, Stranger would be a good character to look at. It's honestly a shame that this is the only game he has appeared in so far, as I would be interested in seeing more of the character in the future...although, to be fair, his game WAS the last original game Oddworld Inhabitants released before basically bowing out of the gaming industry for a few years, so you can't exactly say he's been written out of canon yet!
Moving on to the lesser details that I think really help to make the game, I really like the creative nature of the different ammo types. It would be easy to just make the crossbow fire a bunch of arrows or something which Stranger can buy from shops or something boring like that, but what this game does is makes the ammo be creatures which you can find and hunt for in the wild. While this is probably not a major thing for a lot of people, I really like it, as it shows a creativeness in the development that goes above and beyond the call of duty (pun not intended).
The game also plays wonderfully. The controls respond very well and, although I'm not keen on the fog effect that makes seeing a particularly far distance impossible, I can let that go due to the fact that this was originally an XBOX game and the HD version is basically a slightly spruced up port of it.
So, would I say the game is worth picking up? Well, I'll let Twilight Sparkle say it for me:
For the benefit of those who aren't interested in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and, as such, didn't click on the video: YES! YES! A MILLION TIMES, YES!
Seriously, though, this game is really worth checking out. It isn't a flawless game, but the sheer creativity of the game is impressive and the flaws in it aren't especially serious on your first play through (although they do become more of an issue if you want to play it more than once). If you're been out of gaming for a while now and want a valid reason to get back into it, then this might well be that reason! I would personally recommend getting it along with the rest of the games in the form of the Oddboxx if you can, as you get four games for less than £20 if you do that, but this game is definitely worth picking up on its own if you can get it and you don't especially want to pick up the other games...although you'd be missing out on two brilliant games that are classic video games of the 90's (and Munch's Oddysse) if you go for that option!
Final rating: 8 Out Of 10
A very good game that, had it been the swan song to Oddworld Inhabitants if their departure from the video games industry in 2005 had been permanent, would have ended the whole franchise on a really strong note! Since it isn't, it leaves you a strong starting point to speculate into what the future of the franchise could be...and, if Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is any indication, it looks like it's going to be absolutely amazing! It might look a bit outdated now, as it's been over nine years since the game originally came out (and over three since it first got a re-release onto relatively modern platforms: on PSN, it took until late December 2011!) and the story isn't really strong enough to justify more than one playthrough, but, if you aren't put off by that and this sounds like your kind of game, then go get a copy now! Trust me, it's worth picking up!
So, due to having nothing else I can really talk about, here's my first ever video game review!
Oddworld Inhabitants are probably one of the first companies I ever remember seeing a game by. Back when I was a young kid, I vaguely remembered seeing a section of a cutscene from a game that I thought looked interesting. For some reason, I never made a note of what the game was and I went on my merry way. Yet I never forgot that cutscene and it was nearly fifteen years later (specifically, earlier this year) when I finally found out what game the cutscene was from: Abe's Exoddus. I was happy to find that out, but I figured that I'd never see the game again, as I didn't have a PS1 and I didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time to pay what I assumed was going to be a huge amount to get the game, but then PSN came to the rescue and I happily downloaded the Oddboxx, which contains all of the Oddworld games, and started playing the first game in the series, Abe's Oddysse.
And proceeded to get my ass handed to me.
Brutally.
Repeatedly.
After a few hours of playing, however, I got accustomed to the difficulty spike and was fine...up until the next zone, where it felt like I'd gone back to square one.
I've still not finished Abe's Oddysse now, to be honest. I suspect I must be somewhere past the halfway mark, as I've been through both temples and am currently on my way back into the factory, but, at the moment, I just don't know. I was originally going to go through Abe's Exoddus, then go through Munch's Oddysse and finally finish with Stranger's Wrath, but I got so tired of dying that I opted to skip forward to Munch's Oddysse to spare my controller from getting thrown through a window.
And I was kind of bored by it.
It isn't a bad game, but, at the time of writing, I'm about halfway through the game and I can't help feeling like the game is lacking some of the charm that made Abe's Oddysse so good. While the addition of Munch is a good idea on paper and he's not really a bad character in and of himself, his slow movement speed just makes playing him a chore (although, I will be fair, he does get better whenever he gets a wheelchair) and he's not really added a lot to the game so far. Maybe he becomes a much better character later on in the game, but, so far, he just leaves me unimpressed.
By contrast, I've adored Stranger's Wrath since I first started playing it.
Let me start by discussing the flaws of the game first. Firstly, The Oddworld games' habit of setting the difficulty dial up higher than they really should do is more reasonably handled than usual, but there are still a few moments where you will be getting frustrated at the challenge of the game. One bounty in particular (I won't say which one, but those of you who have played the game probably know which one I'm thinking of) will hand your ass to you quite easily if you only have Zappflies with you (although I wasn't in that position: I just didn't want to use them because I was trying to capture the target alive), so you are strongly advised to keep your more interesting types of ammo as full as you can before you get to the actual target and to not be shy about using them when you get to the battle if it will make things easier. This isn't the only instance with really high difficulty, but this is the one which I felt overdid it so much that I really have to bring it up as a warning for potential interested gamers. The difficulty, for the most part, is otherwise fine, if still high enough to challenge you throughout the game and encourage you to heal up whenever you can (which isn't a big problem, thanks to Stranger's ability to recover health by LITERALLY SHAKING IT OFF).
Secondly, while the story is well handled for the most part, I have to say that a lot of the first half of the game will have you wondering where the plot went. You start out delivering an outlaw that you've captured to a town and then you go and do some bounties while the plot basically waits for you to do that. After that, the plot does pick up, but you still spend a lot of time doing bounties up until about the middle part of the game (which, for the benefit of those who have not played the game, I will not spoil for you). After that, the game continues to gather even more momentum, to the extent that you'd be forgiven for wondering why the game opted to wait so long to start bring this story out. Maybe I just took too long to get to that point, I don't know...
The third is the voice acting. While, for the most part, it is very good (which is all the more impressive when you realise that a large amount of the voice acting is done by one man: Lorne Lanning, who is one of the co-founders of Oddworld Inhabitants), I cannot help saying that I find the voice acting on the Grubbs rather grating to listen to. It's not necessarily bad, but I can't help turning up the music I usually have on in the background whenever they start to speak. Luckily, they don't talk a huge amount over the course of the game, so you can call this a nitpick pretty comfortably!
Fourth, as much as I enjoy the game, there's not a lot of reasons to replay it once you beat it for the first time. To be fair, this is a problem with a lot of single player games that focus on telling a story and don't have multiple paths to take the story down to encourage replays, but you basically have no reason to play this game again once you beat it unless you really want to experience the story. Which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but, when you know what the twist is and then realise you have to spend about half of the game just to get back to it, you will probably have to fall back on the story of that half to get you there. And...well, you only need to read my second complaint to know that it isn't going to carry you back to the second part.
That's really about the only real issues I have with the game. Apart from that, you get a lot that is good at minimum!
First of all, the art style of the game is just wonderful to behold! If you're ever played an Oddworld game before now, you already know what to expect, but, if you haven't, then let me sum it up for you: highly creative character designs, a somewhat dark industrial look to the city buildings (mixed with a bit of what you might expect to see in a old Western film for this game) and beautiful open landscapes! Oddworld Inhabitants are probably best known for their great art style for their games (which makes it a huge shame that they've only released four original games since they were formed...), and this game certainly does not disappoint on that line!
Secondly, I really like the way the game combines play styles. By default, the game plays like a more typical third person action-adventure game, but, when you want to use Stranger's crossbow, it goes to a first person perspective rather like that of a FPS. Speaking as someone who is rather fond of these two types of games, I have to say that both styles are done very well indeed, to the extent that I'd actually say that it would be possible (if not a good idea: you can't run or punch in FPS mode and you can't shoot in default mode) to play the game in just one style if you really wanted to.
Thirdly, despite my complaint about the story taking more time than it really should to start coming together, I have to say that it's actually a pretty good story! I can't really talk about it much without spoiling some big twists, but I will say that, once the game starts picking, the story is easily one of the best stories I've seen in a game. True, it isn't necessarily an especially original story, but it's very well told and the twists will catch you off guard (which is why I'm not spoiling them in this review).
Fourthly, Stranger, while not the best protagonist the Oddworld series has provided us so far (that would be Abe), is a brilliant main character. He has a great design in general (although you might have a few questions post-first spoiler) and his catchphrase when he meets his bounties ("Dead 'r alive, yer ass is comin' with me") just reeks of the guy being a badass. And that's not covering the fact that he can literally shake off injuries to heal himself. If you want to get a good idea how to do a badass main character well, Stranger would be a good character to look at. It's honestly a shame that this is the only game he has appeared in so far, as I would be interested in seeing more of the character in the future...although, to be fair, his game WAS the last original game Oddworld Inhabitants released before basically bowing out of the gaming industry for a few years, so you can't exactly say he's been written out of canon yet!
 |
| They have me surrounded -- the poor bastards! |
The game also plays wonderfully. The controls respond very well and, although I'm not keen on the fog effect that makes seeing a particularly far distance impossible, I can let that go due to the fact that this was originally an XBOX game and the HD version is basically a slightly spruced up port of it.
So, would I say the game is worth picking up? Well, I'll let Twilight Sparkle say it for me:
For the benefit of those who aren't interested in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and, as such, didn't click on the video: YES! YES! A MILLION TIMES, YES!
Seriously, though, this game is really worth checking out. It isn't a flawless game, but the sheer creativity of the game is impressive and the flaws in it aren't especially serious on your first play through (although they do become more of an issue if you want to play it more than once). If you're been out of gaming for a while now and want a valid reason to get back into it, then this might well be that reason! I would personally recommend getting it along with the rest of the games in the form of the Oddboxx if you can, as you get four games for less than £20 if you do that, but this game is definitely worth picking up on its own if you can get it and you don't especially want to pick up the other games...although you'd be missing out on two brilliant games that are classic video games of the 90's (and Munch's Oddysse) if you go for that option!
Final rating: 8 Out Of 10
A very good game that, had it been the swan song to Oddworld Inhabitants if their departure from the video games industry in 2005 had been permanent, would have ended the whole franchise on a really strong note! Since it isn't, it leaves you a strong starting point to speculate into what the future of the franchise could be...and, if Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is any indication, it looks like it's going to be absolutely amazing! It might look a bit outdated now, as it's been over nine years since the game originally came out (and over three since it first got a re-release onto relatively modern platforms: on PSN, it took until late December 2011!) and the story isn't really strong enough to justify more than one playthrough, but, if you aren't put off by that and this sounds like your kind of game, then go get a copy now! Trust me, it's worth picking up!
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