Time Signature Third wish...

Genre: US power metal

I know, I often gripe about the power metal genre and its tendency to be cheesy and kitschy. This does not mean that I dislike power metal as such, and whenever a really cool and interesting power metal band comes along (and, there ARE many of those), my day is pretty much saved.

So, thanks to Order of Nine for saving my day with their latest release "Seventh Year of the Broken Mirror".

Drawing on the more hard-edged aesthetics of US power metal, the tunes on this album are dark and heavy, often entering into power-thrash territory with its aggressive riffage and chucking guitars. There are both epic and melodic elements pulling the music in the other direction (and some of the tracks feature keyboards and other melodic element). The result is a stylistically broad type of power metal that captures the best of both power-thrash and epic power metal. On top of this, Order of Nine have sprinkled a couple of progressive elements. The brilliant "Changing of the Guard" pretty much captures everything that makes this album as interesting as it is.

In a power metal context, perhaps the most unique feature of "Seventh Year of the Broken Mirror" is Michael Degrena's baritone vocals which may take some time getting used to simply because this type of singing is unusual in power metal. But, once his voice clicks with you, hopefully, you should be able to appreciate the important contribution Degrena makes to the unique sound on this album. The musicianship is top notch across the board, and fans of blazing guitar solos especially have something to look forward to.

If you like dark power metal with and unusual vocals, then "Seventh Year of the Broken Mirror" is an album that you simply must not miss out on.

Time Signature What men call metal...

Genre: power-thrash

I've always thought that there should be "power" in power metal, and one of the reasons that I am very critical of the genre (which I otherwise love very much) is that a lot of power metal tends to be cheesy and even goofy in a sort of happy puppy way. The American power metallers in Dark Empire's music is free of power metal cheese, and full of "power" all the way through.

Stylistically, I would say that we are dealing with power-thrash than pure power metal, which is underlined already in the opening track 'A Plague in the Throne Room', which might even be described as more thrash than power metal. Dark Empire not only make use of elements from thrash metal; like Cage and Iron Fire, Dark Empire also incorporate elements from extreme metal into their style, and this is one feature that I welcome. Thus, Dark Empire make use of additional growled vocals, provided by guitarist Matt Moliti, which go well together with main vocalist Brian Larkin's more traditional US power metal vocals. Larkin has a powerful and a kind of raw voice which suits the style of "From Ruin to Refuge" very well.

Dark Empire call their own style 'dark power metal' and that is a quite fitting label, because, although there are thrash, melodeath, and other extreme-metal elements aplenty, the core sound is undeniably power metal, and the genre-defining features are there, such as the grandiose and epic catchy choruses, and an overall epic atmosphere that actually goes well with the album's more aggressive sides. As with Symphony X's brand of power metal, there is progressive twist on "From Refuge to Ruin" in the form of some odd time signatures, the use of some alternative song structures, and some neoclassicisms. However, Dark Empire's style is much more aggressive and less progressive than Symphony X, so do not expect a "Paradise Lost" or an "Iconoclast".

"From Refuge to Ruin" is definitely a great power-thrash album that is rich in dark atmosphere and aggression, yet contains all the elements that make good power metal.

Time Signature The American metallers A Sound of Thunder are back with their sophomore effort, and, all I can say is HOLY FUCK it's awesome!

But since reviews on the Metal Music Archives have to be more than 100 words, I guess I have to say more than just "HOLY FUCK it's awesome."

Fortunately, this gives me the opportunity to praise the band even more. Combining elements from traditional heavy metal (especially Iron Maiden and Judas Priest seem to be sources of inspiration here) with a few of the non-cheesy elements from mainly US power metal, A Sound of Thunder have put together a collection of very strong and compelling songs, sprinkled with a bit of southern groove, a bit of hard rock swagger, a bit of power-thrash aggression, and a bit of doom metal darkness every now and then. Some tracks are even epic in natures, such as the ballad 'This Too Shall Pass' and the Spanish-flavored 'Calat Alhambra' as well as the quasi-symphonic 'Discovery'.

I must say that, while I enjoy every aspect of the album and the musicianship is top notch all round, the main attraction to me on this album is Nina Osegueda's vocals. She is simply awesome. Her voice is super versatile, ranging from soft silky sentimental singing over raw metal screams to ballbusting rock roars. She is definitely one of the best metal vocalist I have heard in a long time.

Fans of classic metal should definitely check out this album because... HOLY FUCK it's awesome!

Time Signature A sense of urgency...

Genre: progressive metal

The seasoned vocalist Lance King has fronted many bands throughout his career, and last year the time came for him to release a solo album - namely "A Moment in Chiros", which is released on his own Nightmare Records.

Stylistically, "A Moment in Chiros" falls under the rubric of progressive power metal which might be described as a blend of Anubis Gate and Queensrÿche (back when Rÿche were more interesting). Artistically, I think that the type of melodic progressive power metal that Lance King delivers is actually quite successful. The performance is tight and there is a certain groove to the compositions, which also strike me as multi-layered and dynamic, but never so whimsical or quirky, that the casual listener can't keep up. King's flirtation with keyboards and electronic elements every now and then could be a recipe for potential disaster to some, but he more than gets away with it, as it actually fits very well into the very melodic sound.

We are definitely dealing with sophisticated and progressive music. However, a central element is a good dose of catchy melodies - especially in the choruses - which is why "A Moment in Chiros" is not prone to alienating people who are not into progressive or avant-garde music. Lance King's voice reminiscent of that of Geoff Tate at times - but also quite unique, and the way he delivers his vocals (with plenty of clarity and power) is destined to make the tunes on the album even more compelling than they already are instrumentally.

Additionally, the drumming (provided by Morten Gade Sørensen og Wuthering Heights and Pyramaze fame) is as precise as a clock, and guitar solos from Anubis Gate's Kim Olesen are nothing less than virtuous. Unfortunately, the bass is not as prominent in the overall mix as it should be, but it serves its purpose.

Fans of progressive metal and progressive power metal along the lines of Queensrÿche, Artizan, Anubis Gate and Pyramaze should check this album out and enjoy the streamlined and sophisticated melodic music it has to offer.

Time Signature Through the madness...

Genre: melodic thrash / power-thrash

Teramaze are branded as a progressive thrash band, and this description has also been applied to their latest effort "Anhedonia". Well, to be honest, I am not sure how progressive I think this album is. It definitely has a a lot of sophistication to it, and there are a couple of odd time signatures and other elements of finesse every now and then, but is that enough to make it progressive?

In any case, we are dealing with melodic thrash metal here - at times even describable as power-thrash. And melodic thrash which, in my opinion, is not only original, but also pretty damn good. The combination of melodic vocals, riffage which is at times melodic and at times aggressive but always sophisticated, and rock solid drums works incredibly well, which we hear already in the opening title track.

While grounded in melodic thrash metal, there are also elements from modern rock in general to be found on this album, and this influence is especially prevalent in Brett Rerekura's at times AIC-like vocals. In the big picture all of these elements fit neatly into the overall sound, as does the crisp and well defined production.

So, this is a very good work of melodic thrash metal, which I find inspiring and invigorating. There is a sad note attached here, though, as Julian Percy, who plays the drums on this album, died from heart problems in 2009 and thus never lived to see the release of "Anhedonia". But, given the sheer quality of the music and the artistic success that this album is, what better way to honor and commemorate Percy than through "Anhedonia"?

Fans of melodic thrash metal should definitely check out this release. It is aggressive but melodic and sophisticated. It is already an artistic success, but you can help make it a well-deserved commercial success, too.

Wilytank Primordial are one of those common knowledge blackened folk metal acts that prove that you don't need cheesy keyboards or flutes and fiddles to make interesting folk metal; just a little acoustic guitar to go along with their epic sounding metal music. However, no one ever brings up their debut 'Imrama' in any discussions of the band. Granted, this is one one of their weaker albums, but there are a good amount of quality elements to keep me coming back to it.

This album actually leans more toward black metal than folk but the influences that hint at their later inversion of that order are definitely here. There's the opener "Fuil Arsa" which has folkish acoustic guitar played alongside the metal music and non-English lyrics. Beyond that song, the rest of this album is mostly black metal; but Primordial does have their trademark Primordial tone going already, i.e. lots of triplet riffs and lyrics dealing with paganism, society, and dark romanticism. Those three themes are enough to cycle back and forth from through the album's ten song cycle, and there's some very memorable licks like the aggressive sounding "Here I Am King" and "The Fires", the more somber "The Darkest Flame" and "Let the Sun Set on Life Forever", and the flat-out epic opener and closer pieces "Fuil Arsa" and "Awaiting the Dawn".

There are a few reasons why 'Imrama' is one of Primordial's weaker albums though. A lot of these pieces are good but not great, and the only two I'd put in a Primordial dream live set list are the opening and closing pieces. The musicianship feels sloppy in places' the example that comes first to my mind is in "Here I Am King" in the first blastbeating section where the riffs and drumming don't seem to match up right. Singer A.A. Nemtheanga combines all his styles like he usually does: harsh, spoken, and clean. However, 'Imrama' features some of his weakest clean vocals ever. The dude barely has any range here, which makes him sound pretty boring when compared to his work in Primordial's other albums. Fortunately, he'd improve in time for the sophomore album 'A Journey's End' three years later.

'Imrama' was their debut album and Primordial are one of those bands whose debut album is only a dry run of the excellent material to come. These pieces are weaker than Primordial's later work, but the majority of them are still good for what they are with the side effect of making their later albums seem even better in comparison. So, go ahead and give 'Imrama' a go if just to see what Primordial was like before 'Spirit the Earth Aflame' or 'To The Nameless Dead'.

Phonebook Eater 7/10

"Spiral Shadow" is a big mix of emotions and musical variety.

American Stoner Metal band Kylesa’s 2009 release, “Static Tensions”, was one that was hard to follow, because of its use of successful formulas mixed together well. But “Spiral Shadow” comes right behind it in terms of quality, and in some points, there is even a slight improvement: however, overall it’s not as solid and enjoyable as the previous album.

There are pretty noticeable changes in direction the band takes on this new album: the distortion has lost a bit of it’s original impact, favoring however a more atmospheric sound, cleaner passages that include diverse guitar effects and more rich arrangements; this way, many of these moments are remindful of Atmospheric Sludge Metal, except for the fact that Kylesa have always been straight to the point and have always done the job quickly. The type of impact the band delivers is also very varied; from tense, anxious moments, there could be more optimistic and cheerful ones, or angry, violent ones. Previous albums by the band have had more of a monotone attitude and never changed their perennial state of anger (“Static Tensions” was the first album to change that a bit more).

Again with a short, forty minute long album, Kylesa with “Spiral Shadow”, although showing they can blend many things into one another in order to make a more different, elaborate and musically luxurious sound, are making the album as a whole a little less solid and a bit more sparse: the great songs are still here, like the opener “Tired Climb”, which is nauseatingly aggressive for the most part, but it also has a cool, tense and anxious build up. “Crowded Road” has a Doomier, heavier feel, while the guitar tapping of “Don’t Look Back” almost reminds of Math Rock, with a somewhat strange and very subtle Pixies influence in the songwriting. The second half of the LP, while it still has a few good moments like the solemn closing track, is a little less emotional and impactful, focusing more on making interesting effects rather than concentrating on the melodies themselves.

An album with a very wide range of sounds that still however remains faithful to Stoner Metal. Although a bit one sided because of the obvious superiority of the first half to the second half, it remains enjoyable pretty much all the way through, and delivers excellent songs that will become, in my mind, Kylesa classics.

UMUR "Your Last Orison" is the debut full-length studio album by multi-national progressive thrash metal act End Amen. The album was released through Institute of Art in 1992. End Amen was a shortlived project founded by Dan Rock (guitars) and Norman Legggio (drums) of Psychotic Waltz, Uwe Osterlehner (vocals, guitars) of Deathrow and Siggi Blasey (bass, keyboards) of Crash Museum, during the collaborative 1992 tour in support of "Into the Everflow (1992)" by Psychotic Waltz and "Life Beyond (1992)" by Deathrow.

The music on the album is progressive/technical thrash metal with the emphasis on the thrash metal part of the sound rather than on the progressive metal ditto. If you are familiar with the last couple of Deathrow albums, the music on "Your Last Orison" is pretty much down that alley, but not nearly as powerful or technical. The progressive metal part of the sound pops up on occasion. It´s especially some parts with keyboards that leads my thoughts in that direction and then the title track. It´s interesting to note that Dan Rock and Siggi Blasey would actually take parts of that track with them to their next collaborative project Darkstar and incorporate some of the ideas on the first album by that band. However the music on "Your Last Orison" is predominantly teutonic thrash metal with strongly German accented English language vocals. With the musicians involved it´s no surprise that the musicianship is really strong but personally I have a hard time appreciating Uwe Osterlehner staccato thrash metal vocal style. The sound production is decent but nothing special.

"Your Last Orison" is not the most cohesive album neither when it comes to album flow or the quality of the songwriting and I´d recommend listening to both Psychotic Waltz and Deathrow over this any day. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted. This is an example of an album that shifted copies because of the musicians involved rather than the quality of the music.

Yog Sothoth With song titles like "The Choir of the Dead" and "Procession of the Dead Clowns", this is not an album to play as background music for bingo events or Sunday brunches. It's bleak, cold, unforgivable and downright mean sounding. The music is almost a miasma of buzzy guitars playing dissonant melodies propulsed by somewhat industrial sounding drum tracks that pinball between slow grooves and ripping blasts. Vocals are basically growls and screams that are completely indecipherable, along with some distant additional vocal tracks that sort of meander and weave in and out of the music along with some keyboards to add to the creepy aura. There are a few tracks that are essentially eerie interludes to keep the haunting vibe afloat before the next onslaught of hair- raising chord progressions kicks in.

The French black metal scene had some unique ideas and style going on the first decade of this century judging by this effort. The guitar playing in particular is played in an interesting fashion...such as two guitars deliberately tuned to be a bit 'off' from each other to create this sick sounding swarming insect sound...which reminds me of Deathspell Omega to some extent, although this Blut Aus Nord album just about predates DsO's incorporation of that dissonant aggression into their work. Normally the idea of programmed drums is a big turn off for me, but in this case they work. There's a surprising amount of creativity going on in the programming, as if the tracks were performed by some progbot software.

There are a few tracks that don't quite measure up to others here, but songs like "The Choir of the Damned" with its angry bizarre riffs and the impressive variations on display in "Our Blessed Frozen Cells" are just too damn good to deny. The last track ends things on an impressive note as well, sounding almost gorgeous in a weirdly majestic fashion. I'm no fan of stagnant by-the-numbers black metal, thus I found this to be a bit of a treat and it had a sound of its own when it was released. .

Phonebook Eater 8/10

"Static Tensions" is one of the most enjoyable Stoner Metal releases of the last few years.

Kylesa are an American Sludge/Stoner Metal band; “Static Tensions” is their fourth album, the LP that finally brought them up to popularity among the stoner metal community, after a few, more average and disappointing albums.

The first thing you notice in “Static Tensions” is how different it sounds compared to previous Kylesa material: it is clear the band have found their own, original take on this kind of music. They have massive Sludge Metal/Hardcore Punk influences in most of the vocals , as well as heavy, crunchy, and extremely loud guitars; but the original aspect of the music is probably the rhythm section, often incorporating a more exotic percussion that replaces simple drum fills. However, the drummer in this band does not hesitate in blasting fast bursts of velocity, making Kylesa basically sound like the more drugged out, intense and in-your-face cousin of Mastodon. The great thing about this new style is that slower, clean moments are not rare, and still have that Stoner feel that is just as powerful as the other more intense moments, especially thanks to the clever addition of female vocals.

“Static Tensions”, in it’s most intense passages, reminds not only of the Hardcore gigs but also of clever, well structured Sludge Metal. Despite this raw blend, Kylesa manage to be extremely accessible in every single song, proving amazing songwriting skills. It is pretty rare to find a band that can successfully write catchy melodies, be adventurous, and surround you with total, blissful distortion, all at the same time.

With only forty minutes “Static Tensions” is by far the most solid Kylesa album, where each song, although all of them maintaining the same style (the clean moments though are all different one another), never bore all together, and together shine as one. Of course, there are particular highlights like the amazingly face-bashing first track “Scapegoat”, the more dualistic (soft and aggressive) nature of “Running Red”, the hypnotic atmosphere of “To Walk Alone”, or the straight-forward catchiness of “Almost Lost”. Each and every one of these songs has a different character, and together they form a quite functional family of tough boys.

“Static Tensions” is an extremely enjoyable, fun, catchy, and aggressive listen, despite not being the most cheerful camper out there. Yet, the solemnity of this band could add some further canons to future Stoner Metal.