Necronomicon – The Return of the Witch

‘Canada’s own Necronomicon celebrates the return of the witch with dark rituals and obscure incantations, transforming their latest album into an excessive orgy. Frenzied blastbeats, deadly double bass interludes, all-crushing riffs, and brutal vocals welcome the listener into the blasphemous world of Necronomicon. Complete with a bestial sound, the band easily combines their caliginous vision and uncompromising heaviness to create a tenebrous inferno that pays homage to the dark powers with commanding intensity. The artwork follows this lead to impressively capture the murky atmosphere. “The Return of the Witch” is an aggressive and destructive black/death metal work ready to fascinate even the most discerning fans of Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth.’

Actually, it’s a fucking pathetic excuse for an album. A mess of poorly played instruments and some vocals that sound like something out of a medieval slaughterhouse…. avoid.

2/10

Mr Bogle

Thulcandra – Fallen Angel’s Dominion

Label: Napalm

Regular reader’s will know that I have a disdainful view of most ‘trad’ metal genres and sub-genres. Anything which to me seems to half-arsedly drag together two or more existent genres and try and make their music sound new and interesting… until you hear it. Thulcandra are a good example of this, the music is best described as clear-cut, by-numbers, black metal. The kind of stuff the elitists will snub because it’s actually achieved some sort of mainstream release.

Label bossess, fear not for there are many fat goths who’ll quite happy lap up anything with a growled vocal. Musically, this album is pretty standard. In many ways it’s one of the worst kind of records to actually review because I have no real interest in the band or this kind of music but I can still tolerate it. It’s by no means terrible, but even so I find myself itching to change the soundtrack. But then I’m left with a feeling of emptiness as I don’t really have anything to say about it, thereby failing Journalism 101.

All in all, I figure that if you’re the type to go in for ‘Black Death Metal’ (because one extremity just wasn’t enough) then you will very much enjoy this album. On the subject of the ‘genre’ are they perhaps aiming to finally end the 30 year feud between the two sub-genres? Where they both use much the same instruments and the same grunting excuse for vocals.  Except one lot are satanists and the other lot are fat… simple enough really, so does that mean we have fat satanists? or Satantic fat people…

6/10

Mr Bogle

Amorphis – Forging the Land of a Thousand Lakes

Label: Nuclear Blast

Yes, it’s a perfectly ample and well sounding live recording. I’ve heard better live ones, but it’s not terrible. Just kind of pointless like all live albums. But it exists. More importantly, have you ever had a live album that was actually good? As in better than just getting the actual albums?

Eyelicker

The Last Felony – The Last Felony

It’s probably a fair testament to my ever fluctuating mood that I really enjoyed this record. A standard dose of straight forward deathcore it could’ve caught me on a really good day, in which case I probably would’ve hated it. But since I’m currently nursing a numb jaw after a dental filling, this record is definitely the right medicine.

In terms of audience, if you like Whitechapel/ Job For A Cowboy/ Emmure (delete as appropriate) then you’ll most likely dig Felony.Whilst its not overly technical and in all honesty a pit of a carbon-copy musically, there’s a (I’m gonna sound fucking retarded now) genuine raw energy that it posesses which just makes it brilliant.

At the end of the day, you’ll either like it or you won’t (that’s obvious) but there’s something really genuine which goes beyond just making a lot of noise.

7/10

Mr Bogle

Whitechapel- A New Era Of Corruption.

Label: Metal Blade

Whitechapel have always been a band to stand out slightly from their peers, their ferocity and triple guitar assaults combined with a relentless “fuck you” attitude has earned them a strong cult following thanks to their last two albums. “A New Era Of Corruption” gives us the atmosphere of “…Exile” while probably not quite as technical it still retains that manically aggressive feel. The first two tracks blast out of the speakers as if Whitechapel themselves where stuck in them, a desperate onslaught of a caged beast inches away from tearing your fucking face off. After the first few tracks the album kind of finds its forumla and stays in it for the rest of the album, not to say the songs are bad, but from track to track they don’t change much and at some points I found myself checking to see if the next song had started yet. That said, live I’m very very sure that these song’s will destroy venues across the globe, as they still maintain that insanity and schizophrenic desire.

On the whole, “A New Era Of Corruption” isn’t a bad album, and their recently announced live shows with Job For A Cowboy will be something to look forward to off the back of it, but it’s not as good as “This Is Exile”. I find myself missing something, perhaps more grit and emotion from the music, a few tracks do ignite it and get the blood pumping, and when that happens it’s fucking insane. For an band capable of something as awesome as “This Is Exile” it’s a tad disappointing. For the deathcore scene, it’s still better than most of the shite out there.

6/10

NatureBoy

Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kurch pops down to RC Towers for a chat!

I talked to Hansi Kurch of Blind Guardian in June 2010. This was a biggie, so I tried to keep my rampant fanboyisms to myself and maintain my ever present professional veneer. In keeping with that I found out about the interview at 7am, did a full day’s work, and then interviewed him an hour after I got home. Talk about not having time to put the kettle on!

“Hello!” says Hansi, sounding in good spirits. Which makes a change from how most people sound after a night at the Travel Lodge, doing promotion. “We ended the album some weeks ago, so we try to set up something so we can talk to people. Luckily this time, we’ve been able to come to London for the day”. At the time, I’d not yet heard the album I was supposed to be quizzing our fine German friend about, which he thought was quite amusing.

However, having heard the lead single Voice In The Dark, it seems like as good a starting point as any  to wrangle out details of the new album. “Well, musically we’ve pretty much followed the traditions of Blind Guardian, and somehow tried to maintain an album which delivers the qualities that we’ve achieved and improved on over the last 25 years. So, there’s a little bit of our very early era, let’s say from the Follow the Blind stuff. There’s also a lot of the orchestral approach that we’ve worked with during the last 10 years. There’s also a good amount of 90′s orientated stuff, which means…very bombastic Celtic elements in there as well. It’s a little bit of everything and it more or less came up naturally, we’d not really thought about doing something like that. We started writing right after finishing touring for A Twist In The Myth. We had a pretty good flow, even though it took us another 18 months to complete song writing from the end of 2007.”

As we all know, Blind Guardian are a tad nerdy. Andre Olbrich plays World of Warcraft and it’s rumoured that Hansi has the entirety of The Silmarillion tattooed on his body.  Nightfall in Middle Earth has a very obvious Tolkien slant to it, but At The Edge of Time has a few different literary influences: “Lyrically, since the music seemed to speak a certain…narrating, mythological, fantasy inspired language…this was what I was referring to in terms of lyrics as well. I went back and dipped back into some of my favourite fantasy literature, for example Michael Moorcock and Robert Jordan, and came up with stuff relating to their stories. It’s very inspiring, I think. The title, At The Edge of Time, came in at the very last moment. It’s related to the lyrics, of course. Time is a very constant issue in most of the lyrics, so it was natural for us to involve that in the album title, as well [the phrase] At The Edge of Time is open to interpretation. We’re always scratching the edge of time, whenever things try and change, one can talk about the edge of time. It not naturally meant to be the end of the world, but…something right before a new beginning. In our case, it’s the new album, new touring. The for the world…it’s just new situations”.

Those Blind Guardian bods amongst us will recognise the album’s title is an echo of a line from And The Story Ends,the final track on Blind Guardian’s 1995 album, Imaginations From The Other Side. “When I offered that title to the other guys, Marcus was about to suggest that title, or something very close. We immediately agreed, but we’d had a big discussion prior to that. It was Frederike, strangely enough,  who pointed that out that these were the lines fromAnd The Story End. I really did not recognise it, and even then I had to go back and recheck…’Am I singing it?’ and performing the song in my mind. Then I found that line and thought that was perfect because it’s the line used by Michael Moorcock in some of his stories relating to Elric of Melnibone. That was more in my mind than in And The Story Ends, but since there is such a connection, it’s even more suitable”.

Sacred was made for an RPG called Sacred 2. Unfortunately, none of us have been able to get a legitimate copy of it as a song in it’s own right. Until now. Hansi tells me about the opening track on the album, Sacred Worlds. “The core song is pretty much the same, but we extended it with two additional parts. The orchestration has evolved, but other than, the introduction is about two minutes long and the outro is about ninety seconds of an opera sequence. It’s pure orchestration, so it turns into more of a soundtrack.”

So, onto the tour. We get one date in the UK in September. Only London, says Hansi. “All in all, it will take more than 14 months. We start in Europe for six weeks, in the Netherlands and finish the first leg in November. We’ll take a break and go to North America, from Mid-November. That’ll be to the end of the year. Then we’ll be onto Japan, then back to Europe, especially the countries we’ve not been to at that point. Then it will be the summer festivals, after that probably South America, back to North America and hopefully some Australian gigs as well. That’ll take to about October 2011.”

Making mention of some of the fine metal legions down under, it appears it’s not just the Australians who like Australia. “During our last tour, the off days in Melbourne were quite amusing. I’d love to go there again, have a great day in the Hinterlands. We went to two or three wineries, a cheese factories and then a few bars and pubs. It was a real Australian day, and enjoyed it more than the rest of the tour, there was so much to see. The people there, they provided us with two great shows, and we’d love to go back and do some more. The promoter, he was actually trying to get us over for a New Year’s show but we couldn’t do it because of our schedule, the composing and producing.” Being on the road for over a year is tough work, especially as all of Blind Guardian now have little bards of their own. “It’s difficult for us, but for them it’s far more difficult. They feel it more often, things are so stressful when you’re on the road, you really just rush through and you wonder where four or six weeks has gone. It’s different for all our families, and we all suffer through it. Luckily, technology has made some great progressions like Skype, so we can talk on the phone and see each other on screen. My son, he’s eight years old now, this will be the first tour he’s experienced. He’s sad already, and I’ve only been gone two or three weeks”.

The most important question of all, does Hansi’s son approve of Blind Guardian? “He listens to it, but he’s more into rock music. His favourite band at the moment is Kiss, but I have no idea why! We’re not his favourite band, but it’s too early for him probably. Give him another three years to make a judgement. He prefers me being Daddy than the vocalist of a metal band!”

Now, onto the other stuff. There’s been a rumour about the orchestral Lord of the Rings project that Hansi and Andre Olbrich have been working on. “There’s a bit of truth. We started that about twelve years ago. We keep working when we have the time, somewhere between songwriting on touring. What’s happened so far? We have ten songs. Listen to Sacred Worlds and Wheel of Time, but ignore the band arrangement in it. We’ve recorded three songs with the orchestra so far. We’re doing three songs with an orchestra in August, and then find time in between to do final orchestration and the vocal performances. We’d love to do something connected to Tolkein’s work, this music is predestined to be transferred to higher stages, and we need a really cool storyboard and storyline and make it fit into ninety minutes.”

Despite being insanely busy, we were told by Jon Schaffer that there could be a third Demons & Wizards album later this year. Y’know, because Demons & Wizards are awesome. “I’ve been too busy. We were supposed to do some songwriting in December, but had to kick that to work on production. It’ll be at least the end of 2011 before we have time to work on that stuff. I’d be happy to have an album out at the end of 2012, beginning of 2013.”

With that, I said good bye to Hansi. “It’s been fun! You check out the album, I think you’ll like it. I have a good feeling for you about it”. Is it any good? well, check out my review here: http://twaddlefish.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/blind-guardian-at-the-edge-of-time/. With that, I left the vocalist of Blind Guardian to one of the sunnier evenings we’ve had this year, along with shitty tea and a lumpy pillow from one of Britain’s finest roadside doss houses. I’m down in London in September, so I’ll be checking out Blind Guardian in action. They’ll be good. My invisible hobbit says so.

Twaddlefish

If only we reviewed albums like this dude…

Many of you may be familiar with Zero Punctuation but if not… here’s a classic

In all honesty this is simple genius. I’m not suggesting that anyone attempts a ‘rip-off’ (cause that would be really stupid) but what ZP succeeds with is the sheer brutality which even Charlie Brooker would be proud of. So with any luck if this super-secret project (Yes it’s pathetic but it’s the truth) that I’m working on actually takes off…

Well who knows!

Mr Bogle

New Genre Idea-Gore Blimey (for the heavy English gentlemen)

A few months back I wrote an article called where do we go from here, in which I put forward the question how will the music we know and love change and will we still love it in what ever form it takes. Now I think I invented the single greatest form of British metal ever, it will make the British New Wave movement look like shit… I mean shite. It is as the title of the article suggest Gore Blimey, the music form so English it wears a bowler hat.

So what songs will be part of the Gore Blimey scene, well here’s a few title for you future Gore Blimey fans to sink your teeth into, Boiling Alive in a Nice Cup of Tea!, Cricket Team Gang Rape and Number Ten dooming Street. Even got the first album name GOREdon Bennet.

This could be huge and any band out there take this information and use it you ”ll be huge (within the UK). Think of all the band names you could have, Fish, Chips and DEATH!, Impailed on a Pin Cushion, A Pint of Murder, theres just no roof on this thing!

PterryPtez

Blind Guardian – At The Edge Of Time

The editor thinks it’s hilarious to let me interview Hansi Kurch without a copy of the album to hand. To counter this bold managerial move, my initial review of ATEoT was simply “LOL HOBBITS LOL” but after being threatened with a pointy stick, I apparently have to do a proper one or stay in at lunchtime for a week.

Straight off with things, we’re greeted with a song we already know. Sacred Worlds is an extended, updated and orchestrated edit of Sacred, released last year at some point. As we know, it’s a big pile of happy power metal, and sets the tone for the entire record. ATEoT is an amalgamation of styles that Blind Guardian have used throughout their career. So, if the huge bombast of A Night At The Opera pissed you off, it’s excellently counterbalanced by theFollow The Blind thrash-ness.  The lead single Voice In The Dark is surprisingly low down the track list, sandwiched between a song that’s mostly piano and a the nine minute epic of an album closer, especially considering that a band who’d made a worse album than ATEoT would have put it as the opener to lure the listener in to the whole thing.

Curse My Name is the obligatory folk song, but venturing to territory anew as it’s a full band affair, unlike Bard’s Songor Past & Future Secret. Urgent folk instruments, the slight electric guitar melodies and, of course, a massive drunken chorus. ATEoT is perhaps the most diverse album Blind Guardian have produced to date, Road Of No Releaseproviding in no particular order, piano, a classical groove on guitar, and huge massive thrash in the finale. To be succinct, there’s something here for everyone, regardless of which Blind Guardian is their favourite. It’ll give you a hard on if you’re a fantasy novel buff too, especially Robert Jordan with the imaginatively titled Wheel of Time.

Despite Andre Olbrich still not being told that a Blind Guardian album doesn’t mean a one hour guitar solo, ATEoT is an incredibly strong offering from a band who have yet to make a sub par album in their twenty five year career. And honestly, how many bands can you say that about?

8/10

Twaddlefish

Cathedral – The Guessing Game

Genuinely one of the few bands I love to hate, Cathedral surprise me now and again with the odd good song. The main issue I have with them is that they sound like a group of Stella-quaffers who decided to form a band one Friday night after playing that one Black Sabbath song on guitar.

In the twenty odd years since Lee Dorrian swapped speed for grass, Cathedral have always produced a very working class sounding album. Cerebral Fix have a very similar vibe, no surprising as their members overlap with each other and early hardcore pioneers Crass and Discharge. Despite the middle aged angriness, there’s some decent riffs on offer on The Guessing Game, but they’re spread too thin. The title track is odd in it’s own right, and the nine minute Running Man is spread with Jethro Tullisms that are wildly out of place; it’s almost like they weren’t sure what to do with this record.

I found TGG to be a very uncomfortable listen, something I’ve not often experienced. I found Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone easier listening.  Doom isn’t exactly the primary candidate for throwing in prog elements, and maybe my mind is too clouded to see into whatever ether is puffing out of the hash pipe, but it quite simply doesn’t work. Whenever it decides to go big and riffy, you think “YES! Give me more!”, Requiem for the Voiceless being a very nice exception.

Cathedral is a bunch of guys wanting to be Black Sabbath. I can appreciate that to an extent, but  The Guessing Game is mediocre at best, and certainly far behind the leaders of the genre, and not up to much when compared to their own work either.

4/10