Moloch – Verwüstung (2015)

by David Rosales on June 28, 2015

cover

While most records can be dismissed by finding commonplace music-making missteps, some records seem to do everything competently and yet still manage to lack something vital to music. This is precisely the case with Moloch’s Verwüstung, which makes it a difficult album to assess justly. Fulfilling all that you can expect from a mid-paced, melodic black metal album to the letter, the result is monotonous and surprisingly empty-sounding despite the density of the content.

We must start by handing out the praises the album deserves. The consistency in style, the balance between repetition and the timing to bring in the next idea as well as the breaks in dynamics and texture that produce elegant caesuras in the music. Style is clear and while not completely original, is distinctive (in the sense that we are not left trying to figure out what they are trying to do as a result of any contradiction or meandering of the style) and gets to the point clearly. What Verwüstung can be compared to is a stout robotic armor that moves on its own and can handle tasks effectively but lacks a heart and life of its own so that, when questioned directly, is unable to respond with anything beyond the most mundane observations. What is missing is not the organizing agency that the composer is, but the vision that builds music not only coherently but assembling it in ridges, plains, and other geographical variations that make it a text to be traveled through, and not just a sequence of technically-convincing patterns.

(…) the natural world cannot be grasped in the same way that natural science grasps things, that it requires a fundamental change of attitude, an orientation that focuses no longer on things but on their phenomenal nature, the way they manifest themselves. Thus, it turned out further, the question is not one of the world and its structures but of the phenomenon of the world; that it has to do, first of all, with a description and an analysis of the way in which the world presents itself, then with an explanation of why it presents itself this way.

— Jan Patočka

This vital je ne sais quoi lies on the spiritual dimension of music.  It is both its motivator and its end product. The alpha and the omega of the creative process, it comes to the artist that would have it and through the singular vision, the particular abilities and the subjective filter of the individual surfaces again in reborn form from the composition and execution stages. Music, then, if it is indeed the output of this flow, should feel like a living organism. Moving together and in harmony with all its parts, first of all, but also displaying an independent thinking, a freedom of thought of sorts. This creature may or may not be crippled by the creative power of the human mind through which it flows to be transformed and born again, but its qualities as living spirit cannot be questioned.

When the music process does not flow from a strong inspiration — from a commanding apparition that would ask cooperation of the perceptive human being that is to bring this entity from the highest layer of existence, that of the divine mind, and into the physical one we perceive every day — then no such life is perceived in the music. The most refined techniques and calculated relations become the exercise of uninspired composers. Although this may be difficult to grasp for the average reader, there is a direct link between these explanations and the actual musical elements: beyond the coherence and balance of elements, one finds life in the vivid dynamics, pulsating textures and varying relations that come after the previous requirements (the order is important as some would have only a messy variation without them being the result of the necessary sacred union between coherence, clarity and inspiration). At the expense of using descriptions bordering on the religious, the accusation leveled against Moloch is that of having produced a soulless abomination.

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Detention – Marginal (2015)

by David Rosales on June 28, 2015

marginal

Reviewing promos sometimes entails reviewing albums that to the general public may pass as metal but to us they are not. In fact, this happens more often than not, especially with the tons of third-rate atmospheric music of all stripes trying to pass as black metal, as if the genre did not have enough bland imitators as it is. In this case, we have a female fronted alternative rock album with heavy guitars that somehow made its way into a metal promo stack. Not being our standard fare here for obvious reasons, this review will serve as an example to show not that we do not “like” this style, but rather, why these pop rock styles are, as a whole, musical failures.

The formula used by Detention is pretty common place, use easy, jumpy rhythms that work to keep the listeners attention while a soft female voice keeps throwing simple melodic hooks to serve as the initial pull. None of this is outstanding in the least, in fact, many individual sections may make one cringe as simple passages are squandered in an attempt to create a slightly eerie deviation which one cannot be sure was intentional or not. Songs consist of the usual intro-verse-chorus-bridge organization with some small deviations to create interest. This is the only place where one can tip the hat to Detention: theirs is a sincere attempt at creating music. As with many other bands, it is the pop encasing that limits them and the overall result is found naturally wanting. The belief that a catchy rhythm and nice melodies are the bases of good music. Unfortunately, this is the prevalent belief even in metal circles, which only add the “aggressive” tag to that list.

Although comparisons may be made to a host of different female-fronted so-called symphonic metal or alternative “metal” outfits, in Marginal we see yet another group trying to emulate the sound of early The Gathering and becoming little more than a less competent clone. The Gathering is another one of those groups that in being a “people’s music” and casual feel to it, understate the expertise and talent of the band members, luring many a clueless imitator into trying their underdeveloped talents at this “easy” style.  The greatest failure of this, as that of other minimalist music, lies in not knowing that the power of the original pioneers who pulled these styles off was that of excellence in the details, and an attention to relations and balance that even experienced musicians struggle to grasp and that amateur-level pop bands like Detention are unlikely to ever achieve.

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Deathseeker to release album

by Staff on June 28, 2015

deathseeker

Self-identifying as death metal on the “brutal” spectrum, Deathseeker actually playing something more akin to the groove metal of Lamb of God without engaging in the jumpiness and maintaining a stabler basis. Rather it is based on chugs and rhythmic tremolo-based bursts while vocals accentuate in unvarying and short phrases. While it is hard to call this death metal at all, it is closer to an industrial-influenced groove metal whose central focus is that of heaviness itself. As such it loses vision of musically constructing anything beyond immediate and banal pleasure.

Deathseeker has been in the making for some time already but the creation process has been a recent affair. Now the band is set to release a full-length album, even though they have not given a particular date yet.

www.facebook.com/deathseekerfromnorway

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Urðun – Horror & Gore (2015)

by David Rosales on June 27, 2015

cassette cover

Urðun play a form of primitive death metal that is sufficiently competent to be pleasing to the fan of the style yet be utterly forgettable by virtue of its being both indistinguishable from its peers. But credit should be given where it is due. The band knows how to make clear beginnings, how to turn riffs on their head, create breaks, twists and introduce new ideas without destroying the continuity of the music. The coherence of the song is reinforced by bringing back main riffs in later parts of the songs even if for shorter spans of time than earlier in the songs.

Horror and Gore is the old school tremolo heavy-groove riff procession you might expect from a band like Urðun, but the songs are far from being riff salads. While some contrasting riffs are introduced as new ideas, most riffs obviously proceed from each other evolving in proper motif forms by maintaining one or more dimensions and altering others. Differing enough to be considered separate riffs (you would not consider them as derived from each other right away) but being similar enough that the idea is not broken.

As a demo, Horror and Gore is a modest triumph, but Urðun must, for a future full-length release, be able to refine their style, bringing out a distinctive identity in order to stand out. The way to find this identity is to start thinking about the riffs and this style is the end goal itself and rather to think of them as the tools for them to express what they want. Once they become a means to an end, the conceptual picture of something beyond the music can become the band’s focus, and when the listener experiences the music, he will be able to fall through the music, piercing layer after layer in subsequent repetitions of an album that is more than the sum of its parts and more than its musical structures.

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Iron Kingdom – Ride for Glory (2015)

by David Rosales on June 27, 2015

IK_RFG_Cover

Sounding like an Iron Maiden with the annoying voice from Queensryche’s vocalist from back in the day, Iron Kingdom make melodic heavy metal with the flexibility and propriety of conscious progressive rock. A very clear image of the character, lyrical theme and direction of the music arises through discrete but carefully-considered decisions to express the next clause with a literal musical change to match its change in words.
(more…)

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Aversion – Aversion (2015)

by David Rosales on June 27, 2015

ave

Aversion play black metal that floats in the area between the tendency of “pagan” bands to use a mid-paced, back-and-forth rhythm with a simple grooves and that of melodic black metal bands that submit every part of the music to the “will” or destiny of a main melody. Aversion also shows a preference for constructing songs in a “progressive” way, that is, looking forward, trying to take the song where it has not been before without looking back. The character of the riffs themselves remain in the general area between happy and slightly serious, while the whole does not feel unified enough to have a solid shape. On the positive side, Aversion keep strictly to one style and produce varied riffs that do not violate their initial proposal.

While that impulse for progression is not taken to the dangerous extreme consequence of jumping between styles or letting the musicality of songs fail through sharp contrasts in texture, it produces problems by becoming the foremost preoccupation of the songwriting process, instead of being the consequence of a deeper need. There are exceptions in which changes are a little forced, but these represent a minority in the album. The problem that Aversion faces from this progressive intent is that they have the tendency to accumulate new material, new events in the song, without necessarily attributing them any meaning. Not that riffs have precise meanings, but while an inside-outside process would produce riffs from a precise flow of feelings and an intended direction, in here, riffs sound good together, the musicians have used a criteria of appropriateness to decide whether or not a next riff should be included or not, but it has come from this outer judgement, and not from the impulse that would produce the riff as necessary from the inside. Thus parts sound good together but are not made indispensable, a common weakness in melodic black metal: the happiness of the melody line becomes ruler.

Aversion’s self-titled is still the result of a vague vision that keeps these musicians from looking beyond the surface while they stay afloat through sheer judgement of their own ideas after they have been produced. I posit that in their writing process, riffs are produced and then are considered for the song, instead of riffs being devised with a specific purpose in mind. This is one of the many subtle differences between producing from the inside or from the outside. It is also worth clarifying that there is no dichotomy, these characteristics are manifest in a gamut of degrees as I am sure Aversion are not oblivious to looking for some kind of character in their riffs, otherwise the constant style and character with which they infuse each section would not be as clear. If Aversion can look deeper and find a motivator, they may well give us a worthwhile black metal album in the future.

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Internal Bleeding release new video

by Staff on June 26, 2015

Internal Bleeding band

NYC death metal band, Internal Bleeding, is pleased to unveil the official new video for “Fabricating Bliss. Filmed by director Kirk Farrington and adapted from a concept developed by bassist Jay Liff and vocalist Keith DeVito, the video was shot in a chaotic style to match the frenzied mind of the video’s protagonist.

http://www.facebook.com/internalbleeding

http://www.Internal-Bleeding.com

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Mutilation Rites releases new video

by Staff on June 26, 2015

mutilationrites
Brooklyn-based black metal band Mutilation Rites have released a new video for their song “Contaminate”.
Dimmitt discussed the video’s creation process, stating:

Coming up with the concept for the music video for ‘Contaminate’ was quite simple. The subject matter of the song deals with impending doom of the apocalypse, radiation sickness, and the suffering that war brings about in general. We combined disturbing archival footage from atrocities committed in the last century with a live show we played at Saint Vitus, in Brooklyn, to create a visual aesthetic to match the bleak subject matter and overall feeling of despair that we attempted to create when we wrote this song.

www.mutilationrites.com
facebook.com/mutilationritesnyc
twitter.com/mutilationrites

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Interview with Joshua Wood, managing editor at Metal-Rules.com

by Brett Stevens on June 26, 2015

joshua_wood_-_managing_editor_-_metal-rules_com

Among internet metal sites, Metal-Rules.com has a unique niche as being both popular with newer fans and proud of classic metal. During the last few melees over censorship, I encountered the Managing Editor there, a relaxed fellow by the name of Joshua Wood. Since we are both metal nerds, it seemed an interview was in order, and to his credit, it ended up being more interesting and more metal than people might suspect. Give a big hand in welcoming Joshua Wood, and read on…

What first attracted you to heavy metal?

Easy! Kiss Destroyer, 1976. The excitement, the fire, the blood, the power and the electric energy of it all. The top mainstream bands of the time were all soft rock and disco and along came…Kiss! They just totally blew everyone away.

What first attracted you to writing?

It’s funny, I don’t really consider myself a ‘writer.’ I’m just a guy with lots of strong opinions about metal! My main goal always was, and I suspect always will be, to support the underground and ‘real’ Metal bands, as per our site’s tagline, ‘Supporting Real Metal’ since 1995.” I’m not a critic; I want to support a band I enjoy and feel could use the support and or exposure. I don’t waste my time criticizing bands I don’t like, why bother? Live and let die, they can find their own audience. I’d rather write a positive review of a band and help them instead of slagging one of many, many crappy bands. As a result I write very, very few negative type reviews, whereas some mean-spirited critics seem to revel in finding new and amusing ways to insult bands. Those reviews are funny to read though!

How did you get involved with Metal-Rules.com? Today, as I understand it, you are the Managing Editor. How did you get into this job?

I started as a ‘Guest Writer’ (like all of our staff) back in 2001. Overtime I contributed and showed I was reliable, could meet simple deadlines, brought some creativity to the table and generally showed a passion to support the site. Back then there were very few website dedicated to metal, especially the metal I loved, not the nu-metal that was infecting the scene at the time and it was the perfect forum to show that there were still killer new bands out there besides the crappy/trendy sub-genres. Over time, I became the Managing Editor. It is strictly volunteer.

Sometimes when some crappy rap-rock and mallcore band sends me stuff or is asking for help I feel like saying, “Dude! Do you even LOOK at our site? We are so against the kind of music you make, why did you waste your time contacting us?”

What does the job entail? What are the fun parts, and the harder parts?

I tend to oversee our writers/photographers, give people encouragement, support and direction. I contact labels, agents, bands promoters on behalf of the site, give out assignments and of course add and edit the content to the site. It’s always fun talking to fellow like-minded metal heads about metal and I suppose doing the book and DVD reviews is my favourite part. I’ve written over 1000 reviews for the site over the years! We have a private Metal-Rules Staff Facebook page where we discuss the months assignments, who is covering or reviewing what so we keep it all straight.

The least fun part is having to reject bands or labels that just don’t fit our mandate or interest, but I always try to be supportive and suggest they try other avenues. Sometimes when some crappy rap-rock and mallcore band sends me stuff or is asking for help I feel like saying, “Dude! Do you even LOOK at our site? We are so against the kind of music you make, why did you waste your time contacting us?” lol. Sometimes fixing the countless little mistakes of submissions can get laborious, but I just put on an album and type away!

What sort of metal do you like? Do you distinguish by genre, quality of bands or some other traits that they have?

I’m a fan of many forms/styles/sub-genres of hard rock and metal. It’s almost easier to say what I don’t like which are:

  • Grunge
  • Rap-Metal
  • Nu-Metal
  • Mallcore
  • Metalcore
  • Screamo
  • Industrial
  • Alternative
  • Crossover
  • Punk
  • Shoegaze
  • Ambient
  • Post Rock
  • Post Black

I’ve been actively buying and collecting metal since the late 70s so I have a substantial personal collection of just over 10,000 items, albums, books, DVDs, cassettes, magazines, etc, including a decent stock of rarities, and I love it all! If you include authorized digital promo copies my collection swells to 15,000 items. Thrash, Death, Black, Doom, Power, etc have lots of every style to suit my mood. I do distinguish between genres but I try to keep it to a dozen or so broader genres, but I also enjoy micro-analyzing the subtle differences in bands styles, scenes and sounds.

I’m also the co-chair of the Heavy Metal committee for CARAS (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts And Sciences) the group who host/present Canada’s national music award program, the Juno awards…the equivalent to the Grammys. I tend to use those analytical skills in that role to see what really qualifies as ‘metal’ when it comes time to screen submissions for the awards program. You would be surprised the amount of crap that people consider ‘metal’ and submit to us!

What do you think distinguishes heavy metal from rock music?

That is a tough question! I think Metal has a bit more aggression, speed, power attitude, rebelliousness, negativity, skill, dynamics, sincerity, than the ‘average’ rock band.

Can you name the metal bands that have influenced you most, as well as the writers and other non-musical influences who shape what you do?

The bands that influence me the most are some old favourites, W.A.S.P., Manowar, Thor, Anvil, Raven, and Yngwie Malmsteen. These guys get it. The never bow to trends, they never break, they are all underdogs, survivors, productive and reliable! Many younger fans make fun of those bands but they could learn a lesson or two on how it done to persevere and survive to create real metal art. I doubt many of the new, trendy bands will ever have a 15-20 album, 30-40 year career like the above list.

Martin Popoff is a big influence, we have become personal friends over the years which is cool. Non-musical influences would be the normal day to day stuff, playing sports (soccer) my career, family, hobbies and volunteer work. It all keeps me busy, I wish I had more time to dedicate to the site as you can tell by how long it took me to respond to your kind request for an interview!

I recently wrote that modern metal — nu-metal, post-metal, metalcore and indie-metal — have one thing in common, which is that they are composed like rock bands but use metal riffs sometimes. What do you think distinguishes older heavy metal, underground metal and modern metal from each other?

I think I would agree! I feel much of the younger modern Metal bands confuse ‘heaviness’ with volume and screaming. I understand that there is a natural extension of Metal to want to go after, louder, more extreme etc but often they loose site of some of the key elements that attracted me to Metal…the riffs, technicality, proficiency, speed, power all that stuff. Some bands are so busy trying too hard to look or sound what they think Metal is, that they miss the point.

I’ve seen groups like the PMRC or MTV come and go and after waging deliberate anti-metal campaigns (and losing) so I lumped the SJW into that category.

How important is technicality to you in assessing bands? What about production?

To me technicality is extremely important. I love bands like Dragonforce, Immortal Guardian, Joe Stump, Pathfinder, Dream Theater. I love guitar heroes; I have dozens of guitar/instrumental shred albums so that ranks very highly for my enjoyment. As for production, I don’t feel like I have a very refined ear. It amuses me that some people can say, “The production ruined the album or made it unlistenable”, but that is pretty subjective. I’ve never heard a truly horrible production job that radically diminishes my enjoyment of an album. I listen to two-track Death Metal demos from 30 years ago and I listen to full-on, 120 digital track albums from Prog Metal bands with orchestras and infinite layers of sound (like Devin Townsend for example) and I enjoy each for what they are.

Of all the things that you have written, what are your favourites?

I have a few editorials (and or rants) I have done that are more for my own amusement to point out trends or odd facts. One recent one I did was a piece that stated Slayer has copied W.A.S.P. their entire career. Of course, most people in their right mind would disagree but it was fun to find 10 or so interesting little facts and coincidences about the two bands and do a creative piece. Again, the book reviews are really fun to write. I’ve written close to 300 now. Film/DVD reviews are great as well, they can be more in-depth than just another CD review that ten other websites have already reviewed that month as well. Our site we believe has the largest collection of metal DVD and book reviews on the web, with the exception of the big (not-metal) sales portals like Amazon.

A few years back I was contacted by Dr. Niall Scott of the University of Central Lancashire in England. He is the Chair for the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS) and he said he uses my book review section for a reference which I thought was very nice, so the book reviews is probably my #1 fave for now. It’s nice, as the only site that really does many metal themed book reviews people constantly send me books to review which is an awesome perk.

What do you think of #MetalGate? Does metal have its own response to these issues, and not need an outsider view, or should it take influence from other rock genres and consider the SJW agenda?

I have to admit I was not knee deep in that battle. For one, I’m not heavily involved in social media, I don’t do Twitter or any of that stuff so it sort of went under my radar. Secondly, I really don’t care about or put stock into people who criticize Metal. People, the music industry, the church, the government, academics, parents, the media, watchdog groups and even (so-called) fans have been attacking metal from the beginning so I tend to ignore those ignorant fools. I was like, ‘Yup, another bunch of clueless morons with nothing better to do taking aim at Metal’. It was almost a non-issue for me. I’ve seen groups like the PMRC or MTV come and go and after waging deliberate anti-metal campaigns (and losing) so I lumped the SJW into that category. There are but a vocal minority seeking attention by using music (or art, or literature etc) to promote a specific social agenda…it’s like buzzing housefly or yapping little dog, you just ignore it even though you have the power to crush it. I would not want to dignify the SJW clan with a response because the wolf does not concern himself with the opinion of the sheep. Like Jack Black and Tenacious D said, “You cannot kill the metal!” However…. I do admire and support the warriors who picked up the sword and went into battle in the name of metal!

To directly answer your question: No, metal should never compromise and consider the agenda of others; that would be the polar opposite of Metal is. Metal is not about compromise, friendship, or trying to be some happy, all-inclusive, friendly, hippy, group-hug, drum-circle (despite what Sepultura did on Roots!) It never has been and never will be. Embracing that agenda would be one of the worst possible outcomes and it would dilute the purity and beauty of the genre. I think Alice Cooper said it best. He said, (roughly paraphrased) “Metal is not about politics. It is about sex, money and violence. Leave the politics to the punks.”

Can you tell us more about “Metal Mental Meltdown”? Is it true that you’re planning a digital version?

That is a whole other story. The brief version is that I created a heavy metal board game back in 1999. I sold it around the world and it was my full-time job for a short while. Overtime the game ran its course and I returned to the real world of work. I had written some genre-based extension packs but time, energy and money were the enemy. I have often flirted with ideas of some sort of digital version, an app, an on-line game but have yet to put it in motion. The hard copies are still for sale.

What is your radio show, Megawatt Mayhem, like? How do you pick bands to be on the show?

Megawatt Mayhem is one of the world’s longest running metal radio shows. We have been on air for over 29 years every Saturday night on CJSW 90.9FM in the city of Calgary, here in Western Canada. We are a two-hour magazine style show with news, views, reviews, interviews, concert listings and local bands. We have an open door policy for local bands, if a Calgary or area band wants to visit, as long as they have some recorded product of a minimal level of quality we invite them on. The host of the show champions local acts, I am more selective, but it is part of our mandate as a local station to support local artists. We have interviewed tons of bands from the brand new local band in the garage to Metallica.

I also host a more melodic Metal show called Attention Surplus Overdrive which features the more melodic side of the genres; guitar heroes, Prog Metal, symphonic Metal, Melodic Metal etc… it runs for three hours late at night so I can play entire albums by Nightwish or Steve Vai or whoever. I’ve been doing it for almost two years now. It is on the same station, right after Megawatt Mayhem, so I do a really fun five-hour stint every Saturday night/Sunday morning!

If people are interested in what you do, where do they go to find more information and keep up with the latest from you?

Anyone can drop me a line via one of my five (!) Facebook pages! lol. I’d be glad to discuss my involvement in the Metal industry over the last 20 years, from being a promoter, an Assistant Producer of a huge Metal festival, a hosting a Metal nights, and countless small metal-themed projects with anyone who wants to chat!

  1. Joshua Wood (Personal page)
  2. Megawatt Mayhem (heavier radio show)
  3. Attention Surplus Overdrive (Mellower radio show)
  4. Metal Rules (Webzine)
  5. Metal Mental Meltdown (Board Game)
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My Hollow – On Borrowed Time (2015)

by David Rosales on June 25, 2015

myhollow

Most metal journalism has a knack for identifying two particular things as “progressive”, none of which really are that. The first is incredibly messy music that obfuscates itself so much as to become an illegible carnival-fest of styles. The second is bands with tracks any longer than 3 minutes that deviates from pop format. My Hollow’s On Borrowed Time is a deathcore album that is experiencing the second of these two, using a strict rhythmic concordance as a restrictive chain that allows the rest of the musical dimensions to wander with a carefree liberty.

In deathcore, a heavily rhythm-based genre, the break-down-like passages lose their original meaning completely in a context that uses them for a completely different purpose than their original context intended them for. In the best moments in On Borrowed Time, My Hollow oddly attains a coherence through maintaining this rhythmic emphasis between different sections that can be either riff-oriented, melody oriented or pure-rhythm-oriented sections, successfully tying together otherwise disparate textures. This strict rhythmic concordance that becomes unbearable in most deathcore is used as an anchoring device that allows My Hollow to lash out with dangerously varied expression variety in the rest of the parameters that borders on the inconsistent.

When this strict rhythmic link is broken, the album degrades into a completely obscure incoherence all-too-common in this genre for pleasure-seekers with no attention span to speak of. When kept in check, the limitation it forces upon itself in its rhythmic component condemns the song to be a series of themes in wildly different landscapes akin to a collage of scenes with corresponding elements but no chronology or elaboration beyond the juxtaposition. Coherent tracks and spans of sections are unfortunately in the minority of On Borrowed Time, most of it descending into chaotic tough-guy feel-good nonsense.

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