Stryper – Fallen (2015)

Stryper - Fallen (2015)

Christianity as an ‘attack’ on metal might not be as trendy as it used to be, but Stryper never got the message. They reformed in 2003, and someone out there has to be buying their albums, right? The Billboard 200 seems to think so, and the existence of Fallen means, at the very least, that there is still an audience of Christian evangelists that a shrewd marketer can take advantage of. Add to that a more technically skilled visual artist for your cover and some minor updates to your image to make you trendy for this decade, and you get a more religiously acceptable way to listen to some modern pop music and then quickly forget about it.

Make no mistake about it – Stryper is certainly Christian propaganda. I don’t think anyone goes to Stryper looking for an intelligent portrayal of Christianity’s tenets (as opposed to said propaganda), but I could be mistaken about this. They certainly won’t succeed, because Fallen sticks to a fairly basic set of lyrical/ideological templates. A couple of songs here are simple retellings of scriptural events. A few others are songs of victimhood and impending eternal salvation, which are also theologically shallow. Like many other Christian musicians, Stryper also falls victim to the tendency to write thinly disguised secular love songs, but that’s hardly a selling point. I wasn’t expecting otherwise from this band, but given how many anti-Christian bands fall through the DMU meat grinder, it’s occasionally interesting to see another side’s agitprop in comparison to their rough equivalent here, like generic simplified Satanic or nationalist themes.

Backing this up is a fairly generic hard rock band that admittedly trends more pompous and theatrical than average for the style. This is likely a throwback to the band’s “glam” past, but it makes for an understandably vocal heavy experience. Michael Sweet is a reasonably talented singer, but he seems to obsess with multitracking his voice, especially during Fallen‘s multitude of Big Dumb Choruses™. Besides the vox, there really isn’t much to latch onto here. It’s possible that more traditional metal technique has crept back into Stryper’s sound since their halcyon days of commercial success in the 1980s, but with 30 years of production wizardry in the mean time, it can be hard to tell. The band also throws in a cover of Black Sabbath’s “After Forever” for what are presumably lyrical reasons, and even in its more vocally bombastic form here, it outdoes Fallen‘s originals in mood and organization. It does not bode well for you to be outdone by your choice of covers.

In the long run, Stryper is too inoffensive to draw my hatred, but I am certain the local community will be more than willing to savage this album.

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Grave – Out of Respect For the Dead (2015)

Grave - Out of Respect For the Dead (2015)
As a death metal listener, I always ended up favoring the more melodic, complex substyles as exemplified by the work of bands like At The Gates and Necrophobic. Grave isn’t those, never was them, and probably will never will be. I can’t really fault them for their lack of ambition, but the impression I derived from previews of this album’s tracks seems generally accurate. Out of Respect for the Dead is an adequate recording, considering that it’s a retread of a basic style with few detours into others, but the aforementioned lack of ambition makes it difficult to appreciate the expertise Grave displays in their small niche.

As a deathpop album, this succeeds and fires on more cylinders than much of the other deathpop I’ve listened to in recent months. The song structures, while generally basic and reliably verse/chorus, show some expertise in hiding it through simple techniques like varying up the bridges and not forcing the vocalist to repeat the title of the song every 15 seconds. Furthermore, Grave tends to shove their most memorable riffs towards the beginning of each track; while this is a compositional limitation to be overcome, it’s a good idea from a commercial stance since it’ll at least recapture the attention of audience members whose interest might end up fading otherwise. Other hooks are carefully sprinkled throughout the tracks – the occasional “big” riff combined with some skilled use of tempo and texture shifts helps to maintain a basic level of musicality and memorability throughout the album. The product remains simple and accessible enough in spite of its consistent death metal aesthetic; and thusly Grave is guaranteed to sell albums, although I don’t know how much money they’re actually making off their musical legacy since the death metal niche is still not particularly large.

These successes are assuredly not enough to push Grave to the top of the Swedeath pile. They’ve clearly practiced their style to the point that it’s probably trivial for them to pump out a new album semi-regularly. However, most of the strong points of these songs merely make me wish that Out of Respect for the Dead was more ambitious in its songwriting. A failure in that regard is arguably more noble than a lack of effort, although from a philosophical stance that’s not a debate of particular importance or merit, especially when other bands have succeeded. If you absolutely need ultra-basic death metal in the Swedish vein, though, this will probably satisfy your needs.

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Unleashed – Dawn of the Nine (2015)

Unleashed - Dawn of the Nine (2015)
There is no real difference between Dawn of the Nine and an album from a more mainstream Viking themed death metal themed heavy rock band (which, at this point in the history of the universe, means Amon Amarth). Sure, Unleashed is less consonant and theoretically more chromatic, but you’re still listening to an especially standardized and formulaic pop music product, even if Unleashed arguably sticks closer to their original sound than the rest of Nihilist’s progeny. Still, Dawn of the Nine is at least one way to feed metalheads the infamous “death’n’roll” sound without them complaining… at least not immediately.

On this album, like others before it, Unleashed sticks to the arena rock end of the pop sphere. Consonant, monophonic melodic riffing over generic drumming, no real bass, and unvarying vocal technique probably brings to mind many of the other generic, basal Swedeath styled albums we’ve rejected over the years. The songwriting here, though, is unusually fixated on the repetition of simple choruses to a degree that few bands dare approach, even when they’re just as obvious. Therein lies the tragedy of Unleashed, at least in the present – the guitarists have developed a sense of melody and rhythm that would be well suited towards writing good narrative (albeit probably more traditionally styled) metal. At points, there are some genuinely interesting musical elements being thrown around, but rarely if ever are they developed upon because, shockingly enough, it’s time for the song’s chorus. Other times, the musicians toss around extremely basic musical ideas for what are presumably commercial reasons, but that at least is common throughout the industry, and even then you can justify the occasional basic break in the middle of a track as part of an effort to write a more dynamic and interesting song.

What particularly strikes me about my own opinions on Dawn of the Nine is how close they are to previous site writings on new Unleashed recordings. The emphasis on tired, overly basic rock tropes weakens the entire album beyond what its also predictable strengths of musicianship and production can recover. It’s usually not this incredibly obvious on the recordings of this band’s contemporaries, though, but someday they too may need to pander especially hard to the blockheads to retain their underground cred.

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Arcturus – Arcturian (2015)

Arcturus - Arcturian (2015)

Much of 2015 passed me by without commentary before I took up my position as the editor here at DMU. As the year draws ever closer to its end, I see the need to rectify that. How about some pseudo-prog? Arcturus began as a black metal band so underwhelming and half-hearted, to the point that their metamorphosis into a more obviously overwrought, melodramatic rock act on La Masquerade Infernale was actually an improvement. Their vaguely symphonic, electronic, and generally etcetera-based approach, along with a couple of other prominent bands (Borknagar, Solefald, etc) sold well around the turn of the millennium before, like most trends, people lost interest. Somewhere along the line, Arcturus decided to reform and write/sell more material.

Things haven’t changed much on Arcturian, but a few changes in the overall sound did catch my attention. There’s more synthesizers – I’d say “contemporary electronic music”, but metal musicians seem to lag a few years behind popular electronic music trends for better or worse. Furthermore, longtime collaborator Kristoffer Rygg is long gone. One thing I enjoyed about La Masquerade Infernale many years ago was his vocal performance – a powerful, assertive bass that was admittedly used primarily in this sort of post-black context. Simen Hestnæs (ICS Vortex) is similarly charismatic, but he performs in a much more heavily explored vein, so he doesn’t have novelty in his favor. Given that an album of this shape relies on aesthetic novelty to retain reader interest, that’s a strike against it. Otherwise, instrumentation here is reminiscent of Arcturus’s first two full lengths – modal, often mid-paced, sometimes drowned in symphonic instruments.

Arcturian does end up hitting some of my aesthetic buttons, but I’d be a pathological liar if I said I found it particularly interesting. The band relies primarily on varying its sound; the songwriting underneath is fairly standard. There’s a little bit of effort to vary up actual structures through use of dynamics, and techniques pulled from earlier eras of the band’s lifestyle, and there is a sinister sort of consistency here in that every track sounds different from the last. However, the emphasis on aesthetic changes over everything else basically relegates this to the level of soundtrack, presumably adequate for a high budget science fiction themed film or television series but not very interesting on its own. Nothing offensively bad or stupid here by my standards, but it’s essentially a rehash of a style that relies too heavily on its own novelty to be particularly valuable.

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Brendon Small launches “crowd” campaign to continue Metalocalypse

metalocalypse_logo

Despite being a huge animation nerd, I was never able to develop much interest in Metalocalypse, but my support certainly wasn’t required for the companies involved to release four seasons, four Dethklok studio albums, and seriously concern Brett. A couple years of production may have fatigued its audience, though, as the show has essentially been canceled by Adult Swim. Show creator Brendon Small seeks to reverse this – enter the “Metalocalypse Now!” campaign, which at first glance is presumably intended to mobilize fans into a veritable army of demanding Adult Swim and/or Hulu provide the funding for a series finale. In isolation, this is at least a sign of the times – growing social media efforts and the theoretical possibility of crowdfunding continues to open up opportunities for content creators to promote and distribute their work.

On closer inspection, though, I began to question how relevant the efforts of fans would be in this campaign’s success or failure. The campaign has already attracted an enormous amount of corporate sponsorship, ranging from understandable fans like metal journalism/interest sites such as MetalSucks and MetalInjection, to record labels and surprisingly the computer peripheral company Razer. This leads me to believe that the result of this campaign is already predecided by the corporate sponsors. At best, anyone who participates in the social media end of this is a number they can pull up at the inevitable business presentation with Adult Swim’s executives. With some of the names involved, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge promotional blitz and a successful conclusion to this campaign, but our readership would likely be disappointed either way.

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Mayhem – Live in Leipzig reissued for its 25th anniversary

mayhem-live_in_leipzig
I guess Peaceville really doesn’t know when to quit with the compilations and reissues (or that at least they’re a viable way to make more money off known famous works), since they’re also rereleasing Mayhem’s Live in Leipzig. This is specifically the 25th anniversary of the concert documented, as opposed to when it was first ‘officially’ pressed and sold to a mass audience some years afterwards. The CD version of this rerelease also contains a contemporary recording of the band in Zeitz, Germany. See Peaceville’s site for more details.

Whether Live in Leipzig is at all worth your time depends, perhaps, on how you value the various ‘eras’ of Mayhem. It is likely the easiest way to experience the band’s ‘classic’ lineup, featuring both tracks that would eventually make it onto De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas as well as somewhat revamped older tracks from the band’s early, proto-death metal days. As a listener, I find the most value in the polished studio work of Mayhem’s formal debut (because I value Atilla Csihar’s contributions), but the looser intrepretations here are worth at least a few spins.

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Grave previews new track from upcoming album

Out Of Respect For The Dead is in my review queue by virtue of its artist being at least semi-famous. While Grave’s reputation on DMU is something less than stellar, the fame they achieved as part of the early (Stockholm) Swedish makes their latest work worth looking at, at least in terms of comparison to their past and other bands’ present output. “Plain Pine Box” is admittedly not a particularly interesting song, being an extremely simple and basic track reminiscent of what would happen if you simplified Celtic Frost and added extra distortion. A previously released track from this upcoming album (“Mass Grave Mass”) resembles more the band’s stereotypical sound; overall, I expect competence from future Grave if not necessarily must-have or even particularly inspiring albums.

Out Of Respect For The Dead will be available on October 16th, 2015.

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Denner/Shermann – Satan’s Tomb (2015)

Denner/Shermann - Satan's Tomb (2015)

When I first became aware of this recording, I figured the obvious points of comparison would be Mercyful Fate for spawning the eponymous duo of this act, and Satan because that word was in this album’s title. Those comparisons have turned out to be less appropriate than initially expected – Satan’s Tomb draws more from recent mainstream heavy/power metal than either of those two. It’s not enough to separate them entirely from this comparison, but those expecting the second coming of Don’t Break The Oath are going to walk away disappointed for more reasons than they might expect.
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Autopsy to release After The Cutting on November 13th

Autopsy - After The Cutting (2015)
Before Autopsy properly releases their upcoming full length (Skull Grinder, which is deep within the stygian pit of the review queue here at DMU), they will first offer listeners this compilation with the help of Peaceville Records. After the Cutting is an enormous 4 CD compilation of old demos, rehearsals, random selections from previous studio albums, and interestingly enough, the entirety of Skull Grinder two weeks before its official release. The inclusion of new content on compilations is nothing new for Autopsy, although their early demos and EPs have been repackaged again and again throughout the band’s career.

A proper analysis of this compilation’s merit may very well ride on the quality (or possible lack thereof) of Skull Grinder, but the sheer volume of previous content from the band and the promise of further exclusives may very well make it worth a look for collectors.

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Satyricon frontman diagnosed with brain tumor

satyricon-satyricon
The metal musician turned winemaker Sigurd Wongraven reported a brain tumor yesterday. While the tumor is currently benign, it has already caused him some health complications and may continue to do so, even if it doesn’t turn carcinogenic on him. The news was originally posted on his Instagram page and has triggered an outburst of sympathy from Satyricon fans throughout the world.

Satyricon earned some fame in the early-mid 1990s for their enthusiastic (if fairly disorganized) folk black metal sound. After some experiments with ambient music and guest performances with various other musicians in the Norwegian black metal scene, they eventually transitioned towards a more rock oriented style of music. Wongraven also ran Moonfog Productions, which besides releasing Satyricon’s albums also provided an outlet for many of Fenriz’s projects, including Neptune Towers, Isengard, and later Darkthrone.

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