Heavenly - Dust to DustTAC
Power Metal
FranceFirst Impression - Vocals don't quite do it for me.This band seems to be fans of Bal-Sagoth, Rhapsody, and Angra. When listening to the first track on this album I thought I was in for a Rhapsody-like album, and it's not too far off. The vocals were the biggest obstacle to me enjoying this. This guys voice is a little too thin and whiny for my tastes, but I mostly got over it after a few listens. Plus his voice isn't always grating on me. He does some great vocals in the softer sections and has a few good higher register bits. The other obstacle was the overall cheese factor, but that went away once I realized they are just a power metal version of Bal-Sagoth with the technicality of Angra (almost). The quality of the songs are kind of a roller coaster ride. There's nothing outright terrible, but there are a few that don't maintain the same high quality as others. For example the first 4 proper tracks are really really good, but then Keepers of the Earth and Miracle aren't quite as good, plus Miracle is too long. Fight for deliverance is really high quality again and then the last 3 tracks just kind of fall off. So the album ends up being a victim of not knowing what to leave on the cutting room floor.
Overall the album is pretty enjoyable. With a few reworked tracks and some trimming of fat this could have easily been a 9/10 album, but you will have to settle for 8 instead. But that's better than where it started. I initially had it near the bottom of the pack after my first listen. So it did grow on me quite a bit.
Favorite songs - Lust for Life, Evil
Least Favorite - Hands of Darkness
8/10
Obscure Sphinx - Void MotherSacul
Atmospheric Sludge Metal
PolandFirst Impression - Relaxing, Hypnotic, almost trance-like, heavyTrying to describe this album is fairly difficult. It isn't exactly like their newest album, which I am familiar with. It has fewer post metal elements and is more straight ahead sludge metal. I guess... But it still has that great atmospheric quality to it. Which is probably what keeps it from tanking rating-wise. It definitely has that heavy Neurosis-like sludginess, but I think a closer comparison would be the band Minsk, especially the album The Crash & The Draw, or even the band Isis. The difference being a female vocalist, who by the way is awesome! She is right up there with Julie Christmas as far as female metal vocalists go. I like how her vocals complement the dark and moody atmosphere that the album brings to the table. This is highly evident in Velorio and Waiting for the Bodies Down the River Floating. This track also starts out with a cool drum and bass pattern that is hypnotic and engaging.
I think the only real issue I have with the album is it can sometimes get a little too repetitive and the songs tend to go on longer than they need to, hence the album goes on longer than it needs to. If they were to cut out a lot of the filler this album could easily be better than their newest album. By the way you get the bonus half point!
Favorite Songs - Lunar Caustic, Waiting for the Bodies Down the River Floating
Least Favorite - Nasciturus
8/10 (+0.5) = 8.5/10 total
Return to Forever - Romantic WarriorIndiscipline
Jazz Fusion
United StatesFirst Impression - How have I not listened to this album before?
This album is something else. Probably the most technically proficient album of this round. Every one is on point from a technical stand point, but not everything really floats my boat, but I'll get to that in a moment. This is one of those albums that was always in my orbit. Between friends, various forums, websites, internet prog radio (Progulus anyone?), and the plethora of bands that I do know, I've heard mention of this album many times. I may have even heard a track or two from it years ago. Yet, for some reason, I've never given it a listen. I'm glad it was sent to me in this roulette.
Being an instrumental album, obviously you have to be technically really good at your instruments or at the very least be excellent craftsmen of melody/song structure. These guys do both, at least for the most part. The drumming, especially the thunderous opening track, is spectacular throughout. This is the type of Jazz Fusion drumming that I think everyone within this genre tries to achieve. At least it's the style I like to emulate when playing more jazz oriented stuff. The bass is groovy as hell and reminds of the more Funk inspired Blue Food album that was sent in round 1. This album also has a few Funk tendencies scattered in and it's mostly to do with the bass lines. The guitar playing really caught my attention the first time through. The whole time I kept thinking, this sounds like Al Di Meola. This was before I dug deeper in to who was involved with the album and lo and behold it is Al Di Meola! Lots of great, tasteful playing on his part. Even some great technical and flashy soloing.
Now the part of the album that bugs me is Chick Corea's keyboard/piano playing. To me, it's way too in your face and a lot of the keyboard patches sound really cheesy to me. These days I prefer keyboards to act as atmosphere or to add an ambient quality to the music. Think more Porcupine Tree style. I can stand the occasional lead run on the keyboards and I love just plain piano, but the super cheesy lead keyboard patches that show up all over the album get on my nerves after a while. I suppose this could just be a symptom of the time period. I can see where a lot of the late 80's and early 90's video games got inspiration for their music now
Fortunately songs like The Romantic Warrior rely mostly on just pianos and it sounds really great. It lets the other instruments really shine. Like Di Meola's fantastic acoustic solo part and the thundering bass playing of Stanley Clarke, who by the way I am more than familiar with from his work with The Stanley Clarke Trio and his solo stuff.
I can definitely appreciate what everyone is doing on this album from a musician's standpoint and for the most part the song writing is really great and there are some slick melodies. It makes it pretty enjoyable.
Favorite Song - The Romantic Warrior
Least Favorite - Medieval Overture
8/10
Bill Bruford's Earthworks - A Part, and Yet ApartRomdrums
Jazz Fusion
United KingdomFirst Impression - While very good, the drums aren't even the highlight of the album as one would imagine.
Maybe it's because a lot of the newer metal albums I've been listening to have been including Saxophone in them, but I really enjoy the sax on this album. The whole album is very well constructed and as I brought out in my first impression I do really enjoy the drumming too. This is one of those albums that I always planned on getting to eventually, but never did. Bill Bruford is one of my favorite drummers and definitely my favorite Yes and King Crimson drummer. I also enjoy his contribution to Gordian Knot and UK. This album is basically a straight ahead Jazz album, with a little fusion thrown in. Jazz is pretty easy for me too enjoy, including most of it's sub-genres, unless the music devolves in to Smooth Jazz, aka Elevator music, then it can just fock right off. But I digress. As I said the saxophone if my favorite part of this album and it kicks right off about half way through the first track, No Truce with the Furies. Parts of this song, especially the first half, has a lot of a nostalgia feel to it. It reminds me of some of the menu music from the old Gran Turismo games that I played growing up. The title track has a really cool piano and sax groove. It has a very 40's/50's lounge style to it. The rest of the album pretty much keeps similar style arrangements and because of that there really isn't any song that I dislike. I suppose that is part of the problem with the album, they don't really do anything too different. A little more variety might have been welcome, of course they could have shot themselves in the foot by doing that too. What do I know, I'm not a super successful drummer like Mr. Bruford (just a mediocre drummer for the last 20 years
). Even with the lack of variety style wise, there's still of a lot of variety in time signatures (some really cool ones too) and tempo, so it keeps the album interesting from start to finish. Probably not something I will come back to often, but when I'm in a jazzy mood this is something I can add to my collection of awesome Jazz albums.
Favorite Songs - A Part, and Yet Apart, Sarah's Still Life
Least Favorite - none
8.5/10
Akhlys - The Dreaming IParama
Atmospheric Black Metal
United StatesFirst Impression - Biggest cock blocking fadeout I've heard all year.This has some similarities in the spacey wall of sound to Darkspace (although with cleaner, yet still dense production) and the more experimental ambiance of Blut Aus Nord. The first two songs start off so good with great atmosphere and a thunderous ferocity only to kneecap itself with that extremely ill timed and bizarrely placed fadeout at the end of Tides of Oneiric Darkness. Just when the song sounds like its going to explode in to this enormous grand finale/climax it just........fades out??!!!?? WTF?!?! The first half of the track is so impressively forceful that the fade out just kills the vibe. Perhaps the band thought that part would cause utter destruction in all listeners if they didn't fade it out. Whatever, I just wanted to hear it in all its wonderful, terrible glory. It just felt like the whole song was ramping up to that part. I feel like I'm dwelling on the negatives of this album far too much though. In reality that's about the only bad thing I have to say about it. I guess Consummation takes a liiiitle longer to get going than I would like, but the ambiance fits really well, so that isn't really a negative, and boy is it fantastic once it gets going. Speaking of the ambient sections, they are quite varied and help immensely with the mood of the album. It's dark and brooding and perhaps supposed to invoke a bit of a sense of dread or fear. Then the metal sections swoop in and kind of take your breath away with this fast, heavy, dense, crushing sound.
This album is a fantastic example of what is so great about music. The ability to draw out so many different emotions, depending on the style of music. Even though this has more of a chance of filling you with a sense of foreboding than happiness, it is still an enjoyable experience. It's definitely within the style of black metal that I enjoy the most.
Favorite Song - Consummation
Least Favorite - Tides of Oneiric Darkness
8.7/10
Monica Heldal - Boy From the NorthKattelox
Indie Folk
NorwayFirst Impression - 1 bad song doesn't spoil the bunch. Ethereal vocals and great production.While this album is familiar stylistically, I haven't really heard one quite like it. The closest I could think of would be Susanne Sundfør or First Aid Kit. And yet those aren't exactly the same. Either way I really like this. It didn't exactly start out that way though. First listen I thought the first couple tracks were good, the rest were OK, with the exception of 1, which I thought was bad. I figured on it getting a 6.5 or 7. On my second listen I couldn't even remember which one I thought was bad (not sure why I didn't write that down, for future reference), which bumped the score up to about a 7.8/10. Third time through, I was sure this was the best album of the round. Go figure.
Every song here is great! I love this kind of folky, acoustic, singer/songwriter type music. Even when the music turns more Bluegrassy/country I still like it. Although those are the bits I like the least and what bring the score down a bit, with the lowest point of the album being Waiting On the Fire, mostly because of the repetitive lyrics and melodies. The first track, Boy From the North, is such a wonderful way to start the album and it may still be my favorite on the album. Although Conman Coming is pretty great too with those cool guitar licks and layering. The beginning of Fightin Son reminds me a bit of Devin Townsend's Casualties of Cool. The run of songs between Fightin Son and The Road Not Taken is fantastic, with lots of lyrics that I really like. I think the big thing that really draws me in to this album is her voice and the conviction and feeling she has while singing.
Overall this album is a huge departure from the last one you sent, but just about as good. Plus it restored my faith in acoustic folky music after the relative disaster that was Shallow Grave. Everything bad about that album was 1000% better here and everything good about that album was only made stronger on this one because of a much better singer and much better production. I almost want to give this a higher score, but you'll have to be content with a 9.
Favorite Songs - Boy From the North
Least Favorite - Waiting On the Fire
9/10
Scores: Kattelox - 9, 9 = 18
Parama - 9.1, 8.7 = 17.8
Sacul - 8.5, 8.5 = 17
Ariich - 9.5, 7 = 16.5
Romdrums - 7.7, 8.5 = 16.2
Evermind - 8.2, 7.5 = 15.7
TAC - 7.6, 8 = 15.6
Indiscipline - 7.5, 8 = 15.5
Elite - 7.8, 7.4 = 15.2
Lethean - 6.8, 7.8 = 14.6
Jingle - 8.3, 6 = 14.3
Stadler - 6.4, 7 = 13.4
Let me know if I made any mistakes in the scoring