May 2015: The decent and the rescuable

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This is a “best of the month” list for this month, but making the title “Best of May 2015” sounds like giving too much of a spotlight for such a short span of time, and devaluating the word “Best of” somewhat, in my opinion. Therefore I chose a title to reflect reality more clearly: these are the only albums we heard of on this website this month that were decent enough to not be considered utter disgraces to the metal genre (those were in the SMRs or were ignored). The “decent” are those that show consistency in style, coherence, a direction and a clear artistic voice and goals. The “rescuable” are those that are still confused in their composition — unclear, or that seemed to be impeded from development by their own approach to music-making (or that of their own genre).

 

The Decent

  • Ascended Dead – The Advent                                      review
  • Blasphemic Cruelty – Crucible of the Infernum      review
  • Exhumation – Opus Death                                           review
  • Luciferian Rites – When the Light Dies                     review
  • Necrophor – Exterminatus                                          review
  • Nekromanteion – Cosmic Horrors                             review
  • Perversor – Anticosmocrator                                      review
  • Shroud of the Heretic – Unorthodox Equilibrium  review
  • Undead – False Prophecies                                           review

 

The Rescuable

  • Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror                review
  • Bureviy – Concealed Beyond the Space                     review
  • Dew-Scented – Intermination                                     review
  • Maruta – Remain Dystopian                                       review
  • Undergang – Døden Læger Alle Sår                           review
  • Wende – Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft    review
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Shroud of the Heretic – Unorthodox Equilibrium (2015)

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Skillfully bringing together doom/death, modern atmospheric and war metal styles, Unorthodox Equilibrium is more than a fitting name for describing the musical approach used in this album. Bands playing in any of the aforementioned styles have typically fallen prey to different misconceptions. Some have failed by attempting to adopt an orthodox position simplified to the precept that genre cliches guide songwriting and that the result will be good if it “feels good”. Others have taken a route that attempts to bring more original ideas into the mix but whose ultimate goal is still that each section gives them a certain feeling, an “atmospheric/ambient” effect. We can summarize the cause of these blunders by saying that their approach has been too pleasure-oriented.

In Unorthodox Equilibrium we can hear familiar voices bearing the mark of Worship in Last Tape Before Doomsday, Disembowelment (I refuse to follow ridiculous indications as to what letters should be written in uppercase format) in Transcendence into the Peripheral and Esoteric in Paragon of Dissonance.  Unlike them, though, Shroud of the Heretic only slightly avoids falling into complacency with the immediate effect of their arrangements and instead channels these as methods used measuredly. The band manages to promote a sense of movement in each section while maintaining atmosphere without depending on stagnating in the harmony within one section or getting anchored to one kind of texture or intensity level for too long.  This makes the album an incredibly varied experience within the non-restrictive but focused confines of a florid and eloquently coherent language.

Independently of whether this was a conscious decision or not, the heterodox and non-monolithic composition route taken by Shroud of the Heretic avoids this atmospheric metal trap and represents an excellent indicator of an artistically healthy direction for this subgenre of metal.

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Perversor – Anticosmocrator (2015)

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Perversor play a fast and ripping minimalist death metal which some would be tempted to encase in the line of primitive South American so-called black metal were it not for the strong structural development so strongly evident in the detail-intense songs which defeat any accusations of purely atmosphere-oriented thinking. In fact, Anticosmocrator gives us the opportunity to contrast their more musical approach to that of bands with a more vague and atmosphere-building composition mindset. This difference lies in the importance of keeping a balance between evocation and solid musical construction.

While Perversor fills all the requirements to be classified beside any atmosphere-minded bands like those playing war metal, for instance, it far outdoes them by virtue of achieving solid development of ideas in the composition of their songs. Typically, Perversor will take a fast riff and develop both variations on the riffs or transitioning into riffs that are easily recognized as being related to the previous ideas through the interval relations in the patterns used while the rhythms and register are changed. This is a formula that is easily summarized but which nonetheless requires great skill to apply and expand to create convincing songs that both take the listener from a beginning to a distinct ending yet do not exceed the natural reach of the riffs and ideas used.

This is the sort of release that is excellent but will not turn the heads of those who are always on the look out for bands thinking “out of the box” as if that were the whole basis of good music. Perversor compose songs on a solid basis and while not diverging or breaking any limits, create evocative, musically competent and whole music that should be at the top of any discerning metalhead’s list for 2015 .

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Mefitic – Woes of Mortal Devotion (2015)

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Attempting to create an atmospheric kind of death metal, Mefitic build their style on alternating sections of slow, assertive chords in simple rhythms and droning/fluttering, tremolo-propulsed, slowly-advancing melodies and motifs, both usually played in low registers to maintain the aura of heaviness. Unfortunately this is all that there is to say about this album. The description of a superficial traits is all that can be said for it, as the music construction is based on it and therefore paper-thin. The reason why it still deserves a review of its own is twofold. First of all, it gives us the opportunity to point out the deficiency of this songwriting approach, and second because Mefitic remains consistent and coherent throughout the whole album, which is more than can be said of the vast majority of releases.

While we must acknowledge the focus that Mefitic has displayed throughout the whole album, the overall result must be judged and its limitations pointed out. The consistency in color and expression is laudable and should be emphasized as an example of consistent songwriting. The limitations lie in the music being too riff-oriented and the goals remaining superficial, being completely bent on a sort of evocation and heaviness, leaving the musical composition as secondary. While in metal we consider that this is generally ideal, solid and effective composition should not be disregarded in favor of  writing atmosphere-oriented sections that are lined up one after another. Solid composition gives a clear direction, an intricate picture to be discovered through subsequent listens. Forgetting about it leaves you open to the danger of painting a confused or too-general a picture that remains too mystic, indicating a way but not undertaking it.We condemn Woes of Mortal Devotion because this is all it achieves: the building of a foggy and general atmosphere that doesn’t solidify into a clear picture of anything.

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Maruta – Remain Dystopian (2015)

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Sporting the grindcore label, Maruta try very hard and not altogether without failure to insert technical deathcore riffcraft into a grindcore overall approach. While the technical abilities of the band is not in question as the musicianship in this album is superb and clinically precise, and neither is their creativity challenged, as they remain in focus in terms of style and approach through and through as they bring distinct ideas into the album, the premise of it all is not entirely convincing.  The reason for this is that the carnival approach that the technical deathcore, although not completely incompatible with grindcore, is deficient by nature, bringing down the music against the effort of a talented band like Maruta.

 

Grindcore is known for short songs with abrupt beginnings and endings. The genre is characterized by spasmodic outbursts of madness with ventures into heavy and slightly groovy mid-paced sections whose focus remains on the brutality and aura of the music. All this is achieved by Maruta on Remain Dystopian, however, this is only the superficial description of the genre, the first impression it gives to an audience, and this is where most bands, including this one, get trapped. The grindcore of early Napalm Death, Blood or Repulsion can be described in that way, each with different percentages and variations of said description, but there is something that sets them apart from the crowd and it is that at the construction level, the relation between riffs is still carefully maintained. In Impulse to Destroy, Blood remains fluid through riff transitions even when the they switch between speeds or intensity levels, the smoothness within the song is maintained. At the risk of sounding contradictory, I would venture to say that even relatively abrupt transitions remained smoothed out through execution of small fills or very brief affectations that are characteristic of Blood.  Maruta, on the other hand, obfuscate the music with the carnival approach of modern metal bands, creating interest through surprise instead of coherence and build up.

 

All in all Remain Dystopian is a far more accomplished effort than the vast majority of its contemporaries and fans of the genre should keep one eye on them. While fans of modern metal call this incoherence of the music “experimentation” and “nonconformity”, it all boils down to a lazy gimmick. Maruta has the technical chops, and they definitely have the vision as their focused compositions show us, but the chosen direction is perhaps not the best. Were Maruta to correct this direction and it is possible we would have a modern giant of grindcore in the making.

 

 

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Gravestone’s Ancient Spirits out now

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Gravestone is an old school death metal band that go back more than a decade but have only been able to crystallize their effort into an album publication until now, despite the material being written for a very long time already. The style approaches the more melodic expression of Mexican (or other Latin American) death metal bands who are more reluctant in the use atonal solos and maintain a controlled dosis of chromatism in their riffing.

 

The album can be purchased through Australis Records’ website.

 

Tracklist:

  1. Intro / Hidden Remains
  2. Evil Lures the Naives
  3. From tyhe Shadows
  4. Gravestone/Ancestral Decay
  5. Pain Overcomes the Tolerance
  6. Ancient Spirtis
  7. Satanic Rotten Tongues
  8. Waste of Death / Into the Fire of Hell

 

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Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody reveals first single

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After parting ways with Rhapsody of Fire, legendary mastermind Luca Turilli started his own project officially called “Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody”. The style of this new Rhapsody echoed the style that Turilli was recognized for in his own solo projects.

 

The project saw its first release in 2012 with Ascending to Infinity. Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody is now set to release a second album on June 19th.

 

https://www.facebook.com/ltrhapsody?fref=ts

 

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Antropofago to release second full-length

Antropofago-Æra-Dementiæ

Modern technical metal band Antropofago is set to release Æra Dementiæ, which was originally set to be released in 2014 but has been delayed until this year, August 14th.

 
Limited to 500 copies, Kaotoxin Records will release the album as a deluxe DigiSleeve double CD featuring an expanded version of  Between Fear and Madness. Æra Dementiæ, features guest appearances by past and current members of Gorod, Insain, Nephren-Ka and Savage Annihilation.

 
Facebook.com/antropofago.deathmetal

Youtube.com/AntropofagoMetal

Twitter.com/antropofago_bdm

 

 

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Early Music for Metalheads Part 2: Organum

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The influence of classical Greek thought was present in most aspects of intellectual life in the middle ages. Aristotelian thought is central to the works of Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the best known theologian of the era and neoplatonism was influential on those theologians of a more mystical inclination. In the musical world, the basis of medieval music theory – the Church modes – was derived directly from the medieval understanding of Greek musical theory. This musical theory had its origins in the Pythagorean school. Pythagoras was the first westerner to record the mathematical relationships between pitches and used these relationships to derive musical modes. Related to this was the idea, also attributed to Pythagoras, of the music of the spheres, the concept that the proportions of the movements of celestial bodies create an inaudible music that is superior to any form of audible music. Implied in this idea is the belief that audible music should microcosmically re-create this celestial music.

 

Medieval music theorists did not interpret this Pythagorean conception of music as a mere metaphor. There existed a consensus that certain musical intervals were superior to others by virtue of their simpler and therefore more universal harmonic ratios. As a result the earliest examples of organum in medieval music involved the doubling of a chant melody at a consonant interval (1). Over time this practice evolved organically, with the added voice being granted greater independence from the original melody. Eventually organum evolved into a practice where the notes of the chant melody were extended into lengthy drones while the added voice sung extended composed melismas. This practice was known as florid organum.

 

This example shows an earlier form of organum with the added voice having some independence, however parallel consonsances still form a significant component of the musical texture.

 

This next example comes from the St. Martial of Limoges school of composition which produced a large number of works in the 12th century. This piece is not based on a chant melody and is therefore not an organum but rather a conductus. This shows the trend towards more freely composed music.

 

By the latter part of the 12th century the practice of organum was widespead across Europe and numerous theoretical treatises had been produced which shed light on the musical thought of the time. One of these treatises came from an English music student studying in Notre-Dame, Paris, who is known only as Anonymous IV. He wrote at length about the two musical masters working out of Notre-Dame whom he called Leonin and Perotin. If not for Anonymous IV’s treatise the names of these composers would not be known. Together these composers made a number of significant innovations in the composition of organum and other genres which ushered in a new era of musical composition and played a key role in the eventual development of counterpoint and harmony.

 

The older of the two composers of the Notre-Dame school, Leonin, is best known for his organum duplum (organum with one voice added to a chant melody) which employ a form of rhythmic organisation using six rhythmic modes (short rhythmic patterns). Leonin’s younger contemporary, Perotin, was probably the earliest composer to add a third and fourth voice in his organum. He was therefore instrumental in the development of counterpoint of which his music is an early example albeit following different rules to those that governed the counterpoint of later composers. Perotin also utilised the six rhythmic modes although in contrast to Leonin’s free and improvisatory use of these modes Perotin created thematic structures from these rhythmic materials which were developed and varied throughout a piece. Through the use of this and other techniques Perotin composed organum which were an early example of large scale, structured compositions of the kind which became the standard during the common practice period.

 

This example is a somewhat stylised performance of an organum composed by Leonin. The use of rhythmic modes and melismas above a chant melody are made quite clear.

 

And here we have one of Perotin’s two surviving organum quadruplum: Sederunt Principes.

 

 


[1] It may be of interest to note here that this doubling of a melody at a consonant interval is precisely the same technique as playing a melody in power chords rather than single notes since the melodic line is doubled at the fifth.

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Obsession’s Carnival of Lies to be reissued

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US. heavy metal band Obsession will be releasing a re-issue of their album Carnival of Lies (a reunion album originally released in 2006 that is now out of print) through Inner Wound Recordings. Carnival of Lies is set to be released on July 27th in Europe and on Jul 24th in the U.S.

Track listing

  1. Smoking Gun
  2. Carnival of Lies
  3. In for the Kill
  4. Playing Dead
  5. Imagining
  6. The Offering
  7. Pure Evil
  8. I Don’t Belong
  9. Written in Blood
  10. Guilty as Charged
  11. Marshall Law
  12. Panic in the Streets
  13. Judas

 

Obsession “Carnival of Lies” line-up:
Michael Vescera [Animetal USA, ex Loudness, Yngwie Malmsteen] – Vocals
Jay Mezias – Drums
Scott Boland [MVP] – Guitars
John Bruno [X Factor X] – Guitars
Chris Mccarvill [House of Lords, ex Dokken, Jeff Scott Soto] – Bass

Obsession online
Website: www.theobsession.net
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/obsessionmetal

 

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