Katatonia: Live Conternation (2007) 12/28/2009
Posted by scrambledface in Metal.Tags: Doom Metal, Progressive, Shoegaze
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Most live metal albums are worthless contract filler. Improvisation is not a big factor in music based upon precision, so the songs are usually identical to the album versions, with some crowd noise and variations on “Thank you!” and “Come on, you sick fuckers, let’s see you bang your fucking heads!” mixed in, maybe an extended call-and-response section if it’s power metal. Therefore, the only live metal albums I get are from bands I really like who haven’t already released a ton of them (I’m looking at you, Iron Maiden). Katatonia, my favorite band in the world right now, has only released this one, which was recorded during Germany’s 2006 Summer Breeze Festival and comes with a DVD of the same set. At just over 50 minutes, it’s not a true representation of their normal headlining set, an opinion with which cofounding guitarist Anders Nyström agreed when I interviewed him around the time of its release. Despite having the name of a song off their previous album (The Great Cold Distance) in its title, the CD does not include “Consternation,” nor the album’s first single, “My Twin,” nor anything off the Last Fair Deal Gone Down album, my personal favorite, and from what I gather, that of a lot of other fans. It goes without saying that none of Katatonia’s early doom/death tunes appear, either. You do, however, get a decent helping of songs from Distance and 2003’s Viva Emptiness, which are excellently rendered, enough to make up for what’s not there. I particularly like the included renditions of “Soil’s Song,” which benefits from Jonas Renkse’s delicate vocalization and from Fredrik Norrman’s surging riff ringing out loud during the chorus, and the titanic “Wealth,” its alternately spastic and ambient segments helmed by bassist Mattias Norrman (Fred’s bro) and drummer Daniel Liljekvist. These two are the tightest, most astute rhythm section in Swedish metal. When they joined the band before Last Fair Deal, they enabled the astounding feat of a great band becoming greater, and that magic continues to this day. Also worth mentioning is “Ghost of the Sun,” one of Katatonia’s relatively average tunes taken to intense heights here by Nyström’s sick black metal backup vocals as well as the entire band’s remarkably aggressive attack. “Cold Ways,” from 1998’s Discouraged Ones, and “Had To (Leave)” and “Right Into the Bliss” from 1999’s Tonight’s Decision, are the oldest tracks aired, and you can hear Katatonia’s current professionalism oozing from every crevice of what still sound like experiments on those albums. At such a short length, Live Consternation is bound to leave the most obsessive fans slightly frustrated because we know how many great songs these guys have, but that’s bound to be true no matter how long it is. However, this is a release I strongly recommend to die-hards who will find the type of joy I do in the subtle differences from the studio versions. As a snapshot of this particular show, it’s impeccable. However, if you want a better overview of why this band means so much to so many, try The Black Sessions, which includes a two-disc compilation of album cuts and rarities as well as a live DVD of a headlining set that more capably spotlights their career’s diversity.
“Soil’s Song” (live at Summer Breeze Festival, Dinkelsbühl, 8/17/06)
Sigh: Hangman’s Hymn: Musikalische Exequien (2007) 09/03/2009
Posted by scrambledface in Metal.Tags: Black Metal, Orchestral, Progressive
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Sigh is Japan’s most batshit insane metal band, and this is the most “normal” album they’ve done since their very early days. The previous three Sigh discs were genre-hopping feasts that featured psychedelic keyboards, woozy orchestral segments, snippets of marching band, country rock, show tunes, ’70s boogie, reggae, smooth jazz, lullabies, metalcore/sitar breakdowns, you name it – all fastened to a framework of Celtic Frost-y thrash and classic metal, punctuated with the increasingly Muppet-like howl of bizarro scene gadabout Mirai Kawashima. When I first heard it, Hangman’s Hymn was shockingly uniform in its blend of symphonic black/thrash, which despite the band’s eccentricities is not a million miles away from the style plied by thousands of Dimmu Borgir worshippers across the globe. To be fair, Sigh’s second album, Infidel Art, flirted with the synth-black genre back in 1995, so the trio wasn’t just wagging their weiners at the Cradle of Filth kids. Plus, “eccentricities” definitely sells Sigh short. The memorability with which they imbue their unusual concoctions elevates them over many of their experi-metal peers, the strange shifts and juxtapositions built seamlessly into tunes that would stick with you regardless of the bells and whistles and handclaps. This is what saves Hangman’s Hymn from the pile of generic goth/black pifflers. The songs here are consistently exciting and engaging, every pompous swell of synth horns propelling Shinichi Ishikawa’s rabid German thrash riffs further into the Technicolor darkness. Because the disc adheres to a concept structure, musical segments are repeated, revived and revamped in various songs, a sonic narrative device of which I am inherently a fan. Mirai has brought back his frantic black metal scream, which appears alongside his charmingly nasal clean singing and intermittent outbursts of crazed cackling, all adding to the disc’s King Diamond-ish horror show vibe. A choir also graces the proceedings, its voices comprised of fans who sent in home recordings to Mirai (one was the vocalist for unfortunately disbanded Chicago death metallers Enforsaken). Drummer Junichi Harashima benefits from the best production Sigh has ever enjoyed, as this is their fastest material to date and Harashima’s blasts thump and kick exactly where they should. Yes, in most respects, it’s a “proper” metal album, one that would certainly appeal to a more general metal audience than their previous few masterpieces would. Yet, I must agree with other reviews I’ve read where the writer thought it sounded too normal at first, only to grasp its curious intricacies once they found themselves unable to stop listening to it. It’s not my absolute favorite of the catalog (that would be Imaginary Sonicscape), but it confidently maintained Sigh’s spot as Asia’s most fascinating and talented metal act. In the two years since its release, they’ve put out an EP of straightforward Venom covers, added Mirai’s saxophone-playing girlfriend to the lineup and toured the States. However, if their forthcoming Scenes from Hell retains the energy and professional sound of Hangman’s Hymn but delivers the variety of Gallows Gallery, their best work has yet to come.
“Death With Dishonor” (at Damnation Festival, Leeds, 11/22/08)
Grand Magus: Iron Will (2008) 02/24/2009
Posted by scrambledface in Metal.Tags: Doom Metal, Pagan, Traditional Metal
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Although doom and traditional heavy metal bands have their younger adherents, you’re more likely to see short-haired IT guys and skullets in their crowds. That’s because these were the types of metal spawned during the genre’s early days, the ’70s and ’80s, before downtuned speed and indecipherable vocals became prevalant among youngsters seeking the most extreme music they could find. I was lucky enough to come into metal fandom during the late ’80s, so while I’m able to appreciate a well-executed blastbeat and subterranean growl, I can just as easily enjoy a hooky riff and powerful “clean” singing. Sweden’s Grand Magus do have old-school appeal, in that there’s nothing very modern in their music, but that does not make them pure “dad rock.” They started as a more American-sounding doom band (read: lead-heavy blues, Pentagram/St. Vitus/Trouble style), but have evolved into a more melodious Eurometal beast, evoking the Dio years of Black Sabbath more than the Ozzy ones, with a heavy helping of pagan lyrical themes that are at once timeless and conveniently contemporary. Iron Will, the trio’s fourth album, begins and ends with massive Viking riffs, “Like the Oar Strikes the Water” and “I Am the North” as well as the title track riding manly seafaring surges untainted by gothic frills. They occasionally pick up the pace (“Fear Is the Key,” “The Shadow Knows”), and even hearken back to their early days with the Candlemass-y double-whammy of “Self Deceiver” and “Beyond Good and Evil.” What makes Iron Will truly supreme is the hearty leather-lunged wail of guitarist Janne “JB” Christoffersson (also of Spiritual Beggars, the stoner rock faves featuring Carcass/Arch Enemy axeman Michael Amott and Opeth keyboardist Per Wiberg). Vintage and emotional, that voice is as metal is it gets, and, yes, your dad might like it, too.
“Like the Oar Strikes the Water” (at Metal Rock Fest, Lillehammer, 8/16/08)
Finsterforst: Wiege der Finsternis (2006) 02/21/2009
Posted by scrambledface in Metal.Tags: Black Metal, Ethnic, Pagan
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In recent years, the most interesting corner of the nebulous metal scene has been the explosion of bands incorporating traditional folk music. This largely started in Scandinavia as a pagan offshoot of 1990s black metal, which encouraged a return to pre-Christian ideals through romantic notions of atavism and nationalism. The movement gained momentum in former Eastern Bloc countries, where native cultures had been suppressed under Communist rule, and quickly spread throughout Europe as the threat of homogenization loomed under the banner of modernity and globalization. At its ugliest, ethnically-focused metal can be a vehicle for kneejerk xenophobia and esoteric racism, and at its most trivial, it can simply be an excuse to get drunk and wax nostalgic for an era in which its adherents would ultimately find life exceedingly difficult or boring. Finsterforst, from southwestern Germany, fall into neither of those categories. Their tunes lean toward the most accessible end of black metal, with both keyboards and a real accordion pumping up their beerhall guitar melodies and raspy native-tongue vocals. Their out-of-print, self-released debut EP, Wiege der Finsternis (“Cradle of Darkness”), is a great place to start in both Finsterforst’s catalog and the subgenre itself. At 26 minutes, it contains only three tracks, each long enough to weave pastoral interludes among its high-energy material. These guys provide jaunty fun as well as an idealized, brooding old-world flavor, appropriately conjuring the Black Forest that both shadowed their upbringing and provided their band’s name. As one of the most engaging, ready-for-prime-time acts in Germany’s thriving folk metal scene, here’s hoping their upcoming second album, …Zum Tode Hin, catapults Finsterforst to the same level of fame enjoyed by the genre’s (generally Finnish) superstars.
“Schatten der Nacht” (at Skullcrusher, Dresden, 12/22/08)
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