Memories in Broken Glass are a modern metal band from the US. This is their debut album.
This is modern progressive/technical metal with a djent slant that showcases how it’s easily possible to create involving modern music without it coming off as overproduced plastic rubbish. Continue reading “Memories in Broken Glass – Enigma Infinite (Review)”
Riviẽre are a progressive metal band from France and this is their debut album.
This is an intriguing blend of styles that uses progressive metal as a base to launch forays into post-rock, post-hardcore and alternative metal.
As you may be able to ascertain from Continue reading “Riviẽre – Heal (Review)”
Beehoover are from Germany and play Stoner Doom. This is their latest album.
About their previous album The Devil and His Footmen I said “This is an uncommon band who provide an uncommon listening experience” and I stand by that statement for this newest one.
The band remain a two-piece drum/bass combo that provide the listener with a quirky and characterful interpretation of Stoner/Sludge/Doom that mixes elements of artists like Mike Patton, Tool, Primus and Melvins into its enjoyable and personable style of music.
Considering the makeup of the band there is a lot of content to enjoy on Primitive Powers and the songs are quite infectious. The band are adept at adding real atmosphere into their sound, with the bass seemingly capable of expanding to fill all of the areas that the guitars normally inhabit with other bands, and then some.
The drumming is complex, yet easy to get on board with; along with the music’s warm and intimate production it makes for a very satisfying sound.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but the songs on this album seem stronger and more concise than that of The Devil and His Footmen, and also seem to have a greater abundance of atmosphere and progressive tendencies too.
Either way, Beehoover’s latest release is a left-field success and I heartily recommend it for something a little different. Your ears will thank me.
This is the second album from Canadian Progressive/Industrial Rock band The Unravelling.
The Unravelling’s music is modern, Progressive Rock with Industrial elements. It’s layered with emotive content and depth of songwriting.
Recalling elements of bands such as Filter, Nine Inch Nails, Sunna, Gravity Kills, Tool and Katatonia, Tear a Hole in the Collective Vision is 44 minutes of music that draws you in with its dark edge and personal themes.
This is a diverse collection of songs with a great variety in mood, pace and dynamics across the 10 tracks. It’s easy to view a band such as this as providing the listener with a musical journey to go on, travelling down the various routes and paths with the band as they explore the moods and atmospheres of their self-created landscape.
Strong vocals provide a focal point for the music and the singer’s slightly atypical voice fits the atypical music to a tee.
This is an impressive album and should definitely be checked out by anyone who enjoys this electronic approach to atmospheric Rock.
Give it a try.
Vidian are a Polish Post-Metal band. This is their second album.
This is Post-Metal with some Progressive and Modern Metal elements, as well as a minor Death Metal influence, making for an interesting album with quite a few good ideas and interesting avenues explored.
If bands like Gorguts and Dementia Senex are Death Metal bands that are slowly evolving their Progressive Death Metal styles into Post-Death Metal ones, then bands like Vidian have already taken the next step. There’s hints of Death Metal lineage in some of the heavier parts, but for the most part this is firmly in Post-Metal territory.
Think of a band like Isis, then make the heavier bits heavier, the vocals harsher and throw in a trumpet here and there; now mix in a pinch of Tool and a few Modern Metal elements on occasion; Vidian don’t sound too far away from this description.
The vocals combine cleans and shouts, both being performed well. The shouts are tinged with a raw emotion and hark back to a more aggressive influence – almost Death Metal but not quite. The cleans have a certain amount of grit to them, allowing the songs to have an edgy feel even when there’s no shouting involved.
These songs are heavy and dark while also being surprisingly melodic and actually quite catchy on occasion. Post-Metal is not usually a sub-genre that lends itself to catchiness, but Vidian manage it in places on Transgressing the Horizon.
The light/heavy, build/release Post-Metal mechanics are maturely done, and the band have an advantage on the heavier parts as they’re just that little bit more crushing than the norm.
This is a solid album that probably won’t convince you of Post-Metal’s merits if you’re not a fan of the sub-genre, but nonetheless displays depth and skill throughout the 52 minutes playing time. Vidian have a knack for this kind of music and there’s a lot of decent material here.
Highly recommended.
Wells Valley are a Portuguese Post-Metal band. This is their début album.
Blending the claustrophobic swirl of Neurosis with the exploratory mindset of Tool and a touch of the Avant-Garde, Wells Valley have created an album that plays by its own rules and lives by its own aesthetics. I think the closest comparison would kind of be a cross between Rabies Caste and Scarlet.
This is not a normal album, and I mean that in an entirely good way. The band have chosen to take a sub-genre that has pretty lax rules at the best of times and experiment with it to create something that may not be entirely new but it’s as close as we can reasonably expect these days.
The band play around with the Post-Metal formula just enough so that Matter as Regent sounds innovative and fresh, but not so much that it strays to far from what makes Post-Metal such a compelling and interesting listen.
The music is involving and engages the brain as it twists and turns through its various incarnations. The band write songs that seem to be mutations of the standard template; it’s as if the music has been stripped back to the bare bones of the style and then rebuilt in Wells Valley’s vision of what this kind of music should sound like.
The emphasis on the diversity, dynamics and pacing of the songs on Matter as Regent is noticeable, both in the music and the vocals. They don’t seem to like to repeat themselves too often.
The guitars are set to a level where they’re intense and emotive without being overly heavy. Expansive riffs and atypical rhythms run the gamut from expressive to functional to esoteric; there’s enough instant appeal to be endearing but enough depth of composition to keep you returning for more.
Wells Valley have released an intriguing and ambitious album that not only largely succeeds in being greater than the sum of its parts, but also achieves the even greater accolade of sounding mainly like itself.
Quality.
Pineal are from the UK and this is their début EP. They play Post-Metal.
Opening up with a clean, clear sound the band treat us to their take on the Post-Metal genre and like most things in Post-Metal it’s wonderfully individual.
As I’ve remarked on before, the one aspect of most Post-Metal bands which is relatively rare is clean vocals; most Post-Metal groups either go for harsh vocals of some description or no vocals at all, only a few have sung cleans. Pineal are one of the latter bands.
The cleans are initially unexpected but they do fit the music well. They sound very influenced by Alice in Chains and have the same kind of easy, laid-back power inherent in them.
The songs unhurriedly pass through their playing time with the band exploring the rich Post-Metal landscape and the singer producing plaintive, mournful tones on top of everything.
Smiling Cult is a skilful display of songcraft and shows a very adept band finding their sound and working out what feels best for them.
This largely eschews the normal Cult of Luna/Isis/Neurosis triumvirate in favour of a sound that condenses elements of Tool and Alice in Chains into this 25 minute EP.
Already in their short career Pineal show big promise. This EP is an enjoyable listen and if they continue to develop their sound even more then a full album from this band should herald great things.
In Love Your Mother are from Switzerland. The band play short blasts of heavy Metallic Hardcore that takes parts of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah, System of a Down, Mastodon and Tool; Mathcore meets Progressive Metal.
Most of the songs here are angry and heavy but they also have a Progressive Metal edge to them so occasionally branch out into softer areas where clean vocals replace the harsher shouts; all of which is compressed into songs that are typically about the 1 or 2 minute mark, on average.
Although the album is 30 minutes long, the changeling nature of the tracks and the fact that there are 18 of them mean In Love Your Mother are a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of band. Although you could probably make a similar claim for countless Grindcore bands, the difference here is that In Love Your Mother are a much more varied proposition.
It’s an enjoyable release that benefits from a loud volume and thorough listen.
It’s heavy, it’s good, it rocks. Give them a try.
Beehoover are from Germany and are a drum/bass combo specialising in a peculiar brand of Stoner Doom.
The drumming is unrestrained and energetic, while the bass is inventive and fiddly. Their music sometimes reminds me of a stripped down Tool toying with technical Stoner riffs. Complicated and simple at the same time.
The vocals are quite unusual sounding; free-form and loose and very individual; although slightly reminiscent of Mike Patton in style if not in sound. The vocals infect the complex musicianship like an afterthought that has nonetheless grown in the spaces between the notes and developed into an undeniable part of the intricate structure of the songs.
Beehoover manage to fit a lot of stuff into songs that, in the hands of other bands, might be 15 minute epics; in Beehoover’s hands though they typically last about 4-6 minutes are certainly don’t suffer due to this fat-trimming.
This is an uncommon band who provide an uncommon listening experience; they are all the better for it.
If you fancy something unusual and interesting this could be for you.
French band Eryn Non Dae are really upping the ante in terms of quality with this their second full-length.
Eryn Non Dae are a difficult band to pigeon-hole in some ways. I’m going to go with Progressive Metal, (simply because that covers a multitude of sins), but there are also elements of Sludge, Post-Metal, Doom, Ambient, etc. on this artful album.
As a useful reference point think a band like Tool at their most expansive, only make it heavier and add harsher vocals. Prog gone Sludge? Or Post-Metal with the emphasis on the Metal? Tool crossed with Year Of No Light and Rosetta? Maybe.
A sprawling multi-faceted album that requires a guide to fully map out the terrain explored; there is both depth and breadth here, providing the listener with a complete aural experience.
Meliora is darkly atmospheric and bleakly absorbing. The songs have light and shade and never suffer from losing interest. One of the wonderful things about Eryn Non Dae is that they know how to create these various emotions and moods without following the usual Post-Metal template; although there is a good amount of variety on this album it is essentially all centred around aggression and heaviness. This being true, the fact that they have created such landscapes of hardened sound is very telling of their talented nature.
The songs are heavily involving and speak to the listener in private terms, whispering secrets that are hidden in plain sight, wrapped in an enigma of monolithic guitars and towering vocals.
This is an excellent album that I can’t believe has only just come to my attention. Released in 2012 that’s two entire years it has been missing from my life! Definitely a keeper and in it for the long haul. Get this while you can as it will make your life better.
Wonderbox Metal 