REVIEW - RHAPSODY - DAWN OF FIRE

RHAPSODY - DAWN OF VICTORY PROMO (NEMS Enterprises - 2000): Rhapsody is back after the "Symphony of Enchanted Lands" !! The two songs contained on this promo package continues the path of their two previous albums: epic songs full of melodies, double bass drumming and amazingly clean vocals (courtesy of Fabio Lione). Plus you have the always shredding Luca Turilli on guitars. The two songs in this sampler are quite similar to the ones that can be found in their previous effort "Symphony from Enchanted Lands". "Holy Thunderforce" is a great song destined to be a Rhapsody classic with interesting guitar and keyboards solos from the two main composers Luca Turilli and  Alex Staropoli. "Dawn of Victory" the title track is a faster one with a lot of interesting keyboard lines, some violin lines that make the result still better and great drumming and choruses. Rhapsody continues to develop their own style in this third recording with all their trademarks. Email: nems@nems.com.ar

REVIEW: RAVENS OVER GOMORRAH - DARKLY MELISMA

 

RAVENS OVER GOMORRAH - DARKLY MELISMA (Independent - 1999): Excellent metal band (in a black/death metal style ) with great melodies. In the three songs presented here they demonstrate a great cohession as a band with great melodies (see for example "Sacred and Profane Love"), interesting rhythms and corrosive vocals as well as spoken parts. They are really a promisory band. I would like tosee them recording with the budget of say Morbid Angel or a band like them to develope their full potentional. Excellent guitar parts and excellent technical drumming (apart from the blast beats parts) full of double bass. This band is going to release their new opus this year. I hope they can reach a broader audience since they are a really good band. My favorite tracks: the three tracks are excellent but if I had to pinpoint one of them would be "Kingdom Beneath the Wolf" that contains all the elements of Ravens over Gomorrah´s sound.Contact: heavenfalls@hotmail.com

REVIEW: PRAYING GODS - ANTLERS

 

PRAYING GODS - ANTLERS (Ubus Recs. - 2001): Extremely experimental ambient/noise project. Praying Gods are experimenting with sounds in a way nobody else does. The tracks consist in linking different sounds (sounds of different nature) to create an atmosphere or develope an idea. Lovers of bands like Telesmata or VoidChannel will be delighted with this release. There are tracks that seem more coherent than others, for example "Country Style" or "Burning Birch Timber". I can not tell you which instruments is this guy using but they sound really interesting, maybe a great way to explore would be mixing this sounds with a more common song structure so the idea developes in a different way like in "Ingrown Hair" for example. For fans of experimentation and sound madness. My Favorite tracks: "Ingrown Hair", "Radioplasma" and "Them Leaves is a Fallin´". Contact: r_kasch@hotmail.com

REVIEW: PECCATUM - STRANGLING FROM WITHIN

 

PECCATUM - STRANGLING FROM WITHIN (Candlelight Recs. - 1999): A beautiful opening of violins that leads to a harpsichord intro leads us into the world of Peccatum. This is Ihsahn´s (Emperor) project with the amazingly beautiful vocals of Ihriel and the orchestrations that in Emperor could seem out of place but here are of extreme beauty. It is really interesting the contrast of the male vocals (Ihsahn and Lord PZ) with the female (Ihriel). I think that here Ihsahn found a place to experiment things and stretch his music a little bit further than what he does in Emperor. For example there are certain passages with extremely vocals (kind of what King Diamond does). The opening "Speak of the Devil (As the Devil may Care) " is really amazing, the second song ("The Change") however is more similar to Emperor´s material. I think the best parts are were the similarity is not so strong and the passages with Ihriel´s vocals. There are great choruses in here (listen to the middle section of "The Change" or "The Song Whick No Name Carry" to know what I am talking about) and a killer guitar riff opens " The Song Whick No Name Carry " which is one of the best tracks of the album with twisted vocals and good orchestration. A really interesting album with a lot of experimentation within the black/dark metal realm that I think will please all those who love music to evolve and become better and different each time. My favorite tracks: "Speak of the Devil…", "The Sand was Made of Mountains" (with cleaner male vocals and interesting guitar solo) and "I Breathe Without Access to Air". Contact: www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

REVIEW: PAUL NELSON - LOOK

 

PAUL NELSON - LOOK - PROMO CD (Independent - 2001):  Virtuoso guitarist Paul Nelson (Liege Lord) unleashes melodies and chops through all the song that compose this promo CD called "Full Blast". Nelson is a great guitar player as has been shown in his work with the beforementioned band and countless collaborations with diverse artists. This song is reminiscent of the shredding fever that was popular in the eighties. I can listen to shades of Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore and Steve Morse but with a lot of personality in Nelson´s sound. Legatos, speed picking, sweep picking,are predominant aprt of Nelson´s style. I would like to listen the complete work because this guy has a total dominion of his instrument, creating passages full of virtuosity, melodies and good taste. Contact: Liegelord2@aol.com

REVIEW: MURDER SQUAD - UNSANE, INSANE AND MENTALLY DERANGED

 

MURDER SQUAD - UNSANE, INSANE AND MENTALLY DERANGED (Pavement Music - 2001): Death metal the way it used to be in the beginning of the nineties ! Including that muddy sound that was present in the first releases of Entombed, Dismember and Carnage. This is a side project of four famous musicians whose main bands are Entombed (Uffe Cederlund and Peter Stjärnvind) and Dismember (Matti Karki and Rickard Cabeza). The result is similar to what this guys did in the first recordings of the above mentioned bands but with a clearer sound and more experience in the composition of death metal songs. Album opener "Slowly Burnt to Death" is a clear demonstration of what you can find in this recording (and it makes me remember a song from ex Entombed/Therion member Lars Rosemberg´s project when he came to Argentina). Speed, growls, hyper fast leads, deathly slow rhthms, is like watching a catalogue of the best features in the death metal genre (and they sound extremely swedish too). Favorite Tracks: "Twisted High", "The Return of the Rotten" (both musically and lyrically) and "Bloodfreak". Contact: bloodfreaks@hotmail.com

REVIEW: MORGUL - SKETCH OF SUPPOSED MURDERER

 

MORGUL - SKETCH OF SUPPOSED MURDERER (Century Media - 2001): Jack D. Ripper is a strange character and is the only member behind Morgul´s music (the band started as a duo in the early nineties). I think I can define his music as being dark metal with great keyboard orchestration, multiplicity of vocals (clean, high pitched screams, etc.) He introduces the album with the song "Violent Perfect Illusions" with a keyboard melody, orchestration and accentuation done perfectly. What I liked a lot of this Cd is the mixture of standard death metal with all this classical music passages and eastern and folk melodies. The originality is omniprescent in this CD and he dares to do a Kiss cover (that could be a sacrilege for some death/black metal close-minded fans) "She" (I think here the sound is not as good as in the rest of the album maybe is because the guitar riffs and keyboard bases are not as dense as in the other songs) in a very strange version. There are also some pieces with great piano and keyboards like for example "Truth, Liars and Dead Flesh" that for me is the darker song on the CD (the piano melody remembers me of some english horror movies soundtrack from the sixties). My favorite songs: "Of Murder and Misfortune" (with some blast beats than by an electronic drum), "Truth, Liar and Dead Flesh" and "Once Again" (an industrial/death/black experiment). Contact: www.centurymedia.com and http://home.no.net/morgul

REVIEW: MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE - GATES OF DELIRIUM

 

MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE - GATES OF DELIRIUM (Entity Prods. - 2001): The music that Midnight Syndicate developes can be called the soundtrack of a very dark and atmospheric horror movie, because this is the way they are composing now. "Gates of Delirium" is Midnight Syndicate´s fourth recording and is really amazing! The concept of this CD is the story of a madhouse from last century called Haverghast Asylum. The compositional skills of Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka are very mature and they are emphasizing the textures and atmospheres through all the albums with a load of keyboards and samplers. Plus there are voices from the characters of the story that really transport the listener into Haverghast Asylum. Twenty one great gothic and dark songs/passages composethis recording where I would point out the magnificence of "Haverghast Asylum" with its sad melody, the persecution like atmosphere in "Halls of Insurrection" or the orchestration grandeur in "Residents Past". The whole album is really amazing an they have become one of my favoirte bands because of their musical and compositional skills. This is an album to listen with the lights out and letting your imagination flow. 

Contact: info@midnightsyndicate.com

REVIEWS: MADDER MORTEM - ALL FLESH IS GRASS

 

MADDER MORTEM - ALL FLESH IS GRASS (Century Media - 2001): Agnete M. Kirkevaag has a powerful voice. And this is the first thing I though t when her voice appeared in the first song ("Breaker of Worlds") of this album, the second CD from this norwegian band (The first one is called "Mercury"). This woman uses her voice in a completely different way than most female vocalists do nowadays: she is really more aggressive. I mean she is energetic but he knows how to do it while singing great original melodies over the wall of sound created by the musicians. The second thing that came into my mind is the quality of the sound in this recording: is fantastic! Recorded on Studio Underground from Sweden where bands like Opera IX, Carnal Forge or Necrodeath have recorded, this CD features nine tracks of pure heaviness, pure twisted melodies and strange vocal harmonies. What the band wants to emphasize are the different atmospheres and textures that you can find through all the CD: Pure heaviness ("To Kill and Kill Again"), depression and despair ("The Cluster Children"), beauty ("Head on Pillow"). This is an amazing second effort of this promising band. I have not listened their debut but I would love to, considering the quality of "All Flesh is Grass". Favorite Tracks: The Whole Album. Contact: www.centurymedia.com or www.maddermortem.com

REVIEW: LUTI KRISS - THROWING MYSELF

 

LUTI KRISS - THROWING MYSELF (SolidState Recs. - 2001): This band´s music is really heavy, modern and climatic…the first band that comes to my mind when listening to them is Deftones, also I feel there are some shades of Fear Factory and Pantera in there but in a minor proportion. The recording has a strange introduction with some noises and effects before getting into "Black Smith" with great tempo changes in some parts. Followed by "The "Annihilat" Ion" a song with furious rhythms and vocals. Some exotic sounding melodies along with some breathing bases are thrown in "Ligh Blue Collar " one of my favorite tracks from this recording. "Patinetly Philadelphia" starts with an original riff before getting into some vocal madness and melody lines that creat an atmosphere of oppression. This band is really original and gives a needed new twist to modern metal music. My favorite tracks: "Light Blue Collar", "Patiently Philadelphia" and "An Act of My Own Volition". Contact: teresa@toothandnail.com