Kiske/Somerville - City of Heroes

Artist: Kiske/Somerville
Album: City of Heroes
Release date: April 17, 2015
Label: Frontiers Records
Genre: Pop music with guitars and your mom's favourite metal duo








WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
Second album as a duo for Michael Kiske and Amanda Somerville. If you don't know who Kiske is, count yourself lucky: today is the day you get to listen to Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys. He is the quintessential power metal singer, and still has that kind of aura, despite the thousands of copycats who tried to out-Kiske him. You know Amanda Somerville by proxy, considering she is a renowned vocal coach for a lot of metal chicks. She was also heavily featured in metal operas such as Avantasia and AinA and has a good solo career. This is your usual Frontiers Records team-up, like Allen/Lande, with songs written mostly by Magnus Karlsson and Mat Sinner (core members of Primal Fear).

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
It's firmly rooted in the realm of easy-listening rock. Like, yeah, nominally it's power metal but it's softer than what you hear on mainstream radio. For the most part, this works very well, considering the duo can boast crystal clear voices capable of sudden explosions of melody. Walk on Water is one of the best songs in the genre, period - that's how it's done, and you can't teach it, because you need a great melody, an adequate sound and two great vocalists. This is the heart of the project. I enjoyed the drumming by Veronika Lukešová - it's never surprising, but it adds an interesting dimension to the songs. It's also the only thing (together with guitar solos and vocals) that producer Jacob Hansen felt like we should be able to hear through the whole album.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
OhGodthelyrics. God. They're the biggest turn-off. They're not silly in a fun way (you know, like Helloween), they're not so-bad-that-they're-good material (like Rhapsody of Fire), they're just cringeworthy. I actually felt bad for Kiske and Somerville. Amanda, by the way, sounds generic. That's her thing, she is the standard for the genre - which is a great achievement - but she hasn't pushed her voice to develop a unique sound. Chances are, you're tired of the overall sound: cheesy power metal has been done, re-done, killed, resuscitated, overdone again and is now barely surviving. Even if you aren't, you can give your attention to a band who's actually trying to make good songs all the time and maybe infuses a little more energy.

VERDICT
Forgettable. There's a couple of good songs in there (Walk on Water, Open Your Eyes, Run with a Dream) but the problem with melodic albums is that the melodies have to be brilliant. It's why pop music is successful. Here, you can't find many tunes that stick with you after you turn the speakers off. Considering everything else (guitars, keyboards, bass - I've been told there's a bass player, I could hear a faint echo of a bass at times) is just there so the vocals have a background to lean on, there is very little in this album that deserves your attention. That being said, I really love Walk on Water. At least I got something out of this album.

Apocalyptica - Shadowmaker

Artist: Apocalyptica
Album: Shadowmaker
Release date: April 17, 2015 (Europe)
Label: Harmageddon Records
Genre: Alternative rock with cellos









WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
You know them. They got kinda big about twenty years ago playing Metallica covers in a four-cellos lineup, then they didn't really stay big. This is their first album in five years, and for the first time they have a full-time singer, Franky Perez, formerly in the ill-fated System of a Down spinoff Scars on Broadway (he didn't sing on their only album, though). The album is technically self-produced and distributed by Harmageddon Records, which is an effective cost-cutting measure if you want to cut one of the ten or fifteen middle men between you and your record, especially if you can afford to front the money for the actual recording.

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
Take Riot Lights. It's a song with the right mood, a unique touch, a fresh take on the style that put Apocalyptica on the map years ago. It's also an instrumental. Yeah, I'm saying the singer thing doesn't really work. Or, rather, that it only works when you take Perez out of his element (like in Sea Song). When everything clicks, what you have is an album that is easy to listen through but mantains a gothic depth and some interesting twists and turns. Ballads like Hole in my Soul might not be original, but they show decent craft, although it's the kind of song that is least likely to impress the average listener.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
Boy oh boy, everytime Apocalyptica go for a standard rock track they drop the ball. Cold Blood, Slowburn, House of Chains are terrible songs - there is no polite way to put it. It's bland, uninspired, generic sounding top 40 rock with no credible chance of ever making it to the top 40. You know Nickelback? This is worse than Nickelback. It's an astonishing divide between two "souls" of this band - except one is their legitimate soul and the other is a terrible attempt at I-don't-even-know-what, because no one who's trying to make easy listening rock songs can have that bad an outcome and choose to release it nonetheless

VERDICT
Half of the album is pure garbage. The other half rests between passable and good. Luckily, we live in the age of separately sold songs, so you can make your own awesome (well, kinda) listening experience and completely ignore the rest. Of course, here I judge the album as a whole, and it doesn't make me happy at all. But you, lucky reader, can skip the bad parts. If you do that, you'll probably think "man, that reviewer guy is an asshole! This is a great record". It's okay, I'm used to that.

Sigh - Graveward

Artist: Sigh
Album: Graveward
Release date: April 13, 2015
Label: Candlelight Records
Genre: Weird-ass black metal. Wouldn't call it avant-garde though.








WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
Sigh are a Japanese band. And you've got to love the way Japanese musicians put three or four completely unrelated Western styles in a giant blender and drink the result with glee in their eyes. Formally they do play black metal, but they make heavy use of synths and vocoders and they have a saxophonist. The result is surprising - not particularly heavy, with a lot of guitar work, guest vocalists and symphonic ideas thrown here and there. Sigh have this thing where they name their releseas to form the band's name, so this starts with G, the previous one was In Somniphobia and the next one will most likely begin with H (they've done it twice already).

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
If you think Devin Townsend is crazy, wait till you hear The Tombfiller. It's at least as insane as Ziltoid and with three times the stylistic variations. The whole record has a strong symphonic vibe, which combined with the occasional clean vocals (courtesy of Dr. Mikannibal, who as the name suggests is a girl) gives a bit of a Dimmu-Borgir-when-they-were-good vibe. Of course, then you have tracks such as The Molesters of My Soul which flaunts crunching beats in the vein of Meshuggah and vocoder creativity on par with Kanye's (check The Message for another taste of that). Why is there a tzigan violin part in Out of the Grave? I have no clue, but it sounds great. Every keyboard part is amazing and mind-boggling, and the John Zorn-ian sax doesn't hurt either. There's power metal-style guitar work, too.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
Absolutely nothing. Disagree, and you're a heretic.

VERDICT
One of the most entertaining releases of the year. There's about a thousand different things going on at the same time, and it still sounds like black metal. There is no excuse for not listening to this album. Go!

Voivotus - Oma Randa

Artist: Voivotus
Album: Oma Randa
Release date: April 12, 2015
Label: Independent
Genre: Blackgaze with a noise twist









WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
One man project from Russia. We seem to be getting a lot of these lately. Second album - no idea how the first one was, but it's on bandcamp, so check it out. Obviously unsigned. The coolest thing, I feel, is that Vladimir Klimov-Lehtinen was born and lives in Karelia (on the border between Russia and Finland, north of St. Petersburg), and he chose to make music in Karelian. Always nice to have some glocalization.

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
It's one of the rarest instances of a balanced mix between shoegazing and black metal, which is a feat in itself; but then Voivotus goes out of his way to throw in a ton of noise sections, with the same creative care of a sampling artist. He's got imagination and he's bold enough to put it into practice. Most of the times he goes for strident rather than oversaturated - definitely refreshing. It's not mind-numbingly savage as the best noise music on the market, because it's compensated by the aforementioned atmospheric touches. A great overall balance between three different styles with a lot to offer, essentially. Nägimižih is the one track where everything blends together perfectly, while Pädemätöi GiperPoreja does noise well and Tähtiyö is a nice piece of black metal.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
If you ask me, it doesn't make much sense to have three songs under three minutes and one over twentytwo, but power to the artist. That song, Vuottamini Vei Aikua, is the only moment where you can feel that the intention did not materialize into coherent music. You basically nod along and say "yeah, I get it, it's supposed to be this and that", but it's just not there.
Aside from that, the only real drawback to this album is the sound: it's not deep nor clear enough to effectively deliver the chaos at the center of Voivodus' blend of styles. Studio issues can usually be worked out with the right changes, so nothing to worry about.

VERDICT
I'd love it if every artist in the atmospheric black metal scene started doing the same thing as Voivotus does. There's a sense of innate bravery in this album, a feeling that Voivodus comes from a lot of different inspirations which somehow work together. This kind of experimental approach is what the scene desperately needs right now.

Violet Cold - Desperate Dreams

Artist: Violet Cold
Album: Desperate Dreams
Release date: April 11, 2015
Label: Independent
Genre: Atmospheric black metal









WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
One-man project from Azerbaijan. Name's Emin Guliyev. He's got wifi, we've got wifi, he makes music, we can listen to it. This is Violet Cold's first full-length album, although he released a ton of songs since 2014. Most of them aren't metal, which is by no means a bad thing. With Desperate Dreams he plays atmospheric black metal, unsurprisingly - his previous project, Void, erred only slightly more in favour of depressive black metal.

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
Emin is eclectic, and you can feel it, particularly in his rhythmic ideas. It's not all blast beats and double strokes, there are electronic influences all over the place, so you can feel some echoes drum'n'bass in quieter sections and a lot of old school house when the tempo slows. I'm a big fan of the way he uses synths with a sharp electronic tune under heavy guitars - it's cool, it's more or less new, it works. The kind of sound Violet Cold excels at is a brand of epic and gloomy black metal, perfect for a laptop listening experience.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
Guliyev is prone to over-layering: there are many instances where there is something extra needlessly going on in the background. Perhaps it's just me being used to a dryer sound, but I find it distracting. There's also the thing that the black metal factor in the Violet Cold equation is not particularly great. The idea behind the sound is pretty much perfect, and the electronic side is competently executed, it's just not a memorable metal album. What should, ideally, be carrying the songs (the guitar) simply fails to shine.

VERDICT
Still, it's a bit of fresh air. I can only be happy every time a musician takes a risk and tries something this heavy on the contaminations. If Violet Cold wants to choose a road and follow it to the end, then this is it. 95% of metal releases are dull ideas executed with care. This is a good idea with margins for improvement.

Ömheten - Själv

Artist: Ömheten
Album: Själv
Release date: April 11, 2015 (well, kinda. It's available on Spotify and BigCartel now, that's what matters)
Label: Unexploded Records
Genre: Depressive black metal, but they add "suicidal", just so you know it's actually depressed and not some washed-out bullshit.





WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
It's so hard to pull off the "mysterious black metal project" nowadays. This guy (at least from what I gather it's one guy with some friends helping, but more on that later) has a Facebook page. Let that sink for a minute. He went out of his way to choose a pseudonym, he doesn't have a website, he's not featured in the credits, and he has a Facebook page. Times are hard. One of his friends is Fredrik Norrman - yes, the guy from Katatonia. Well, not anymore, but he played with them for sixteen years. Then we have Liz Almqvist playing the cello (kudos for having an actual celloist and not some MIDI tapestry) and Erik Arnberg on the piano. Ömheten is published by Unexploded Records, who aren't big because they're yet to explode.

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
Surprisingly (because the premise doesn't look great), a lot of things shine. It's not your average atmospheric depressive metal, with ghosts bawling and shaking their chains. This is tight black metal with a strong suicidal atmosphere. Great for Saturday nights. It has a lot of doom influences that work especially well with the piano and cello. It's dark, it's heavy, it's got little interesting touches (like all songs being six minutes and six seconds) that make it sound like it's very well crafted. Stäng av mig, easily the best track on the album, sounds like modern Burzum minus his middle age crisis.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
That being said, it sounds gimmicky at times. Norrman apparently really wanted to play in a Shining album, so he's playing like he's a member of Shining. There's something weird in the track order, too: Evig semester från mig själv is the final piece, but it doesn't really work in that place. The whole record (which is 36 minutes long) flows with a purpose, then that purpose is lost.

VERDICT
It's a bit derivative, but if you enjoy the atmosphere you won't mind. There isn't a lot of magic&mystery, it's a "normal" release with some qualities and an approach that hasn't been overdone yet. Instead of focusing on what it could have been, I'd rather say that out of six songs, at least three are a very interesting on depressive black metal. My personal bias for everything with a doom influence might factor into this, however.

The Grotesquery - Curse of the Skinless Bride

Artist: The Grotesquery
Album: Curse of the Skinless Bride
Release date: April 10, 2015
Label: Cyclone Empire
Genre: Death metal









WHAT THIS IS ABOUT
These guys play a lot of death metal. The singer is Kam Lee, a veteran of the American death scene (before death metal existed, kinda), while you probably know guitarist Rogga Johansson from one of the 28 (I counted) bands he's been in. This is The Grotesquery's third album - the first one was quite good and the second was quite quite good - published by a small label and all that jazz. It's a horror concept album, so a regular death metal album.

WHAT IT DOES RIGHT
They definitely nail the horror vibe. The atmosphere feels more like a good videogame than a bad movie. This is helped by how the album sounds - pretty fuckin' good, if you ask me. It's got this cool thing where the vocals are up front, like it's a pop record, but you can definitely feel the instruments punch you over and over. The Grotesquery have the experience they need to make it entertaining, even if this isn't your first (or hundredth) trip in the wonderful world of death metal.

WHAT IT DOES WRONG
I would have done without the spoken intermissions. Orson Welles you are not. Props for trying, but the cringe is strong. Speaking of the music, it's, well, death metal. Nothing less, and nothing more. If you are reading metal reviews online, you know what death metal is, how it sounds, whether it has an impact on you. Of course I'd love every band to push their music towards innovation, but it is how it is,

VERDICT
You already know if you'll like it or not. Let's face it, you probably will. It's actually a shame there aren't enough full-fledged songs, but maybe it would have been boring otherwise. I like the idea of 40-50 minutes of music, not because it's old school but because you can feel that the band didn't shoehorn anything in to please an exec (are there even business suit types in death metal?). This sounds like you'd expect it - it does not disappoint.