Review of Koloss by Meshuggah

So here it is. The most anticipated metal album of 2012.

The Scandinavian monster that is Meshuggah deliver their seventh album, four years after the previous one, Obzen. I do not expect them to have mellowed much since then so I put Koloss on and brace myself.

I am not disappointed.

Opening track I Am Colossus pounds directly at my temporal lobe in a way that feels terrifying but necessary.

With Meshuggah perhaps more than any other current metal band there is nothing to be gained by describing the songs in terms of what is going on technically. That would take away the magic and wonder. You can only describe how listening to Meshuggah makes you feel.

And that doesn't mean simply saying it makes you feel like you want to rip your own head off.

Track 2 The Demon's Name Is Surveillance hammers at you, the bass drums a relentless barrage, the guitars doing all sorts of craziness. It makes me grit my teeth and clench my stomach muscles as I listen. I ask you, what other band can make you do that?

Do Not Look Down does not sound like an order. It sounds like a warning. It sounds like looking down would just be the worst thing I should do, so instead I keep my eyes firmly facing the front, my head nodding as I do my best to follow the unnervingly odd time signatures laid down by one of the great metal drummers of our time. Behind The Sun continues the pummelling but the guitars in the background offer beauty like a rose on a battleground.

The Hurt That Finds You First is an absolute face-melter and is my favourite after the first play of Koloss. It is fierce and wild and the extra layer of guitars makes its even heavier than Meshuggah usually are. If that is possible. There is also one of those quiet passages which Meshuggah do so brilliantly. It is haunting and finishes the track in an understated way. Understated is not a word you often associate with Meshuggah.

Marrow kicks off with a classic off-kilter guitar riff before crashing into a marvellous Meshuggah groove. For a band renowned for being so tight - and they still are, don't get me wrong - there is a rather wonderful louche, loose feel to this track and Koloss in general. There is a real organic feel to the material and I wonder if its that that makes Meshuggah stand out from the rest. There simply is no other band quite like them.

Swarm positively gallops towards you like a desert wind howling across the Sahara. The guitars are ferocious swarming scarabs eating everything in their path. Demiurge not only has a great title but is heavy as all get out. By now I actually do want to rip my own head off but Meshuggah have made that sound like a good thing.

Final track The Last Vigil is a cross between 70s Berlin-era Bowie and Oceansize in one of their ambient moods. Its a gentle end to what has been a ferocious 45 minutes yet still has the capacity to unsettle. I'm reasonably confident that its not a pointer to a next, completely ambient, Meshuggah album but it closes Koloss in an unexpected but nevertheless satisfying way.

It is nigh on impossible for such an anticipated album to totally live up to expectations but Meshuggah set the standards for what metal is in the second decade of the 21st century.

Meshuggah is Koloss.

Review of The Emptiness Within by De Profundis

De Profundis have a rubbish web site. Presumably they know that, but I felt it important to mention it up front rather than hide it away somewhere in this review. However, if they do already know, why aren't they doing something about it?

I always look at a band's web site when I'm about to review something. Mainly to find information on the band itself so that I can pass on that information to you, the reader, but also to get a feel for the band. As this web site doesn't work properly, I shall have to go elsewhere.

Their MySpace page tells me they are a progressive black metal from London. Excellent. I'm always looking out for British bands to get into; so much easier for me to go and see live. The MySpace page also says "the band continues to work hard to share its musical vision of despondency and negativity with the world."

Well, that's cheery.

Mind you, with a title like The Emptiness Within I guess I already had a clue.

Three tracks in and the first thing I've noticed is that there doesn't seem much bass, which is a bit odd for this kind of stuff. Track 3 Silent Gods is an enjoyable six-minute workout with surprisingly melodic guitars and pounding double bass drums but the bottom end is very underwhelming. Nevertheless, the track moves about nicely, in an almost Iron Maiden-like way, and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

Likewise the next couple of tracks.

In fact, by track 5 Twisted Landscapes I'm beginning to think De Profundis are nowhere near as bleak as they seem to think they are.

And I mean that as a good thing. Throughout the album the guitars soar and swoop brightly and the barked vocals add another texture rather than sounding like someone who just wants to bite your head off.

I wonder if De Profundis have parked their musical vision of despondency and negativity and emerged into the sunlight. I don't know how this album compares to the previous two but if this is a conscious effort to be less glum then I think they have made the right decision.

Heck, track 6 Release skips along positively brightly before the guitars kick in with a neat riff. This brightness continues for the next seven and a half minutes. There's even a jazz ending. Not very often you hear piano on a metal album. This is good stuff, it really is. Not earthshattering, but certainly interesting.

Track 8 Parallel Existence has more jazzy stuff but it works as a contrast to the blistering riffs elsewhere in the song.

Final track Unbroken (A Morbid Embrace) is doing more of the above but without sounding repetitive and at the end of the first full play of the album I have realised I like the album a great deal and am looking forward to playing it again. Not always the case with the albums I review.

De Profundis show much more promise than I originally expected from a band with a logo that looks like so many others and a web site that simply doesn't work.

I absolutely, whole-heartedly recommend this album to all you metal heads out there and I will be checking out their first two albums and seeing if they are playing anywhere local. They look pretty lively on YouTube and that's good enough for me.

Review of Incurso by Spawn of Possession

Third album, and first in five years, from one of Sweden's premier technical death metal bands. Sometimes I think that everyone in Sweden must be in a metal band. Which is a great notion.

First track Abodement is a short instrumental and is interesting. The guitars have a melodic ring to them and the drums complement them well. But immediately into track two and all the weapons of technical death metal jab you in the face and there they remain.

The but at the beginning of that last sentence highlights my misgivings with this kind of stuff.

There is honestly no need for me to do a track by track breakdown because they all sound the same. This is both its strength and its fundamental weakness.

For fans, all the tracks sound the same. Huzzah!

For non-fans, all the tracks sound the same. Doh.

I cannot distinguish between any of the tracks. They all hammer along at 1000 miles an hour with an occasional pause before the fury resumes.

Put simply, the better these people are at their instruments, the less I want to listen to them.

Is that so terrible?

Do you get what I'm saying?

Everything is impossibly fast, impossibly fierce, impossibly precise...yet its still possible to put this on and after ten minutes forget its there.

Considering the band are Swedish I wonder why they sing in English. I mean, it can't be for commercial reasons, can it? Actually forget that comment. They may well be singing in Swedish. Or Swahili. Or Klingon. Its impossible to tell and doesn't really matter either way. A guttural growl is a guttural growl.

Now that I come to think of it, Klingon would be a great language to sing metal in.

But I digress.

One thing that does intrigue me about Spawn of Possession is how they work out their material. Its all so complex, with lightning fast tempo changes every other bar, I wonder how they build it all up into a song. Maybe they create complex mathematical equations and then play them. That's what it sounds like. Fair play to them for that.

It sounds like I'm being harsh. I guess I am. But actually I don't dislike it. I just don't like it enough. I can't see how anyone can. You can admire it, sure, but music is not for admiring.

Music is to stir your heart and burnish your soul.

Isn't it?

Review of Astral Mantras of Dyslexia by Funeral In Heaven/Plecto Aliquem Capite

Now, if you're familiar with any of the above two bands then I apologise for telling you something you're already aware of. But I suspect, like me, you will not know them and thus a bit of background might help.

This is a line from the press release: Sri Lanka’s psychotic auditory terrorists and the legionaries of the 666th battalion of the Raavan cult have congregated to create, manifest and aid world spiritual warfare.

Okay, got that?

Me neither.

Basically, I think it means two bands have got together to make an unholy racket. I can't work out whether they all play on all the songs or whether they've got three each and then just link up on the last track.

Either way, I'll try and give you a flavour of what the whole thing sounds like.

The first track is mainly Sri Lankan ethnic instruments with, possibly, some guitars right at the back giving an extra layer. Its actually really quite agreeable although I've never been a fan of world music for longer than five minutes at a time.

The next track is more obvious slow-paced black metal with some chanting and familiar screeching vocals in the background. Again, its moderately interesting although it has made its case by about the 5 minute mark but actually lasts over 12.

Third track is a grinding heavy riff working with some ethnic drums and more chanting. Then it surprises me with some genuine vocals. Not quite singalong but getting there. Some really nice guitar work later in the track, too.

The fourth track I presume is played by some kind of violin-sounding Sri Lankan instrument. It might simply just be a violin, of course. Some information on the press release might have been a better idea, rather than some weird stream of consciousness blurb.

The fifth track is the "infamous" Stoned Guru Ramblings and a more accurate track title you could not hope to find, although I have no idea why it is "infamous". Again, why not use the press release to explain some stuff?

This track is almost the auditory version of a snuff movie. Some people might find that diverting. It kinda washed over me though.

We get more of the same on the final two tracks. They are not without merit but by now I'm beginning to think I need to get some ironing done.

So, a not wholly unpleasant experience. Probably sounds weird and scary in headphones but it does go on a bit. If you're into your black metal and shit then I'd give it a go, but I wish these bands could be more informative in a press release rather than read like a tormented teenager's effort in creative writing.

Review of The Shadows Compendium by Stephan Forte

Stephan Forte is the main man in Adagio, one of the leading lights of the neo-classically tinged metal genre. He is a technically stellar guitarist and boy does he want you to know it.

Widdle widdle widdle widdle widdle all the way through this album.

It almost seems churlish of me to point it out but playing a thousand notes a minute does not a great song make. (This whole album is instrumental but you get my drift.)

All the tracks are accomplished and utterly forgettable the moment they finish. In fact, they achieve the impossible. They are forgettable while you're still listening to them.

With reference to a previous blog of mine, I am happy to inform you that I listened to this album three times before completing my review.

Once would have been enough.

PS If you're thinking this is too short and too blunt, don't worry about it. Anything I say won't make a blind bit of difference to fans of this kind of stuff. Which is just as it should be.

In memory of Mark Reale

Only just discovered that 2012 has already claimed the life of someone who featured heavily (ahem) in my metal education.

Mark Reale was the main man in a band called Riot. In June 1977 Riot released their first album called Rock City and while its not a classic it does include three tracks that I regard as utterly essential: Warrior, Rock City and Overdrive.

There is not a metalhead alive who should not own this album for those three tracks. Remarkably, the album originally never got a US release and I think that's because at least on these three tracks Riot were ahead of their time.

Warrior is closest in spirit and pace to Exciter by Judas Priest, which was released nearly a year later, though Priest had released Sin After Sin a couple of months before Rock City appeared. I've always wondered whether Priest heard Riot or Riot heard Priest. I guess I'll never know.

So Warrior is the belt along. Rock City is the crunching mid-tempo rocker, and Overdrive has the slow start before it all kicks into gear and races along to the finish line. Both Warrior and Overdrive feature brilliant, melodic, soaring solos by Mark Reale.

These three songs are so much better than anything else on the album it is breathtaking. I always wanted to ask Mark Reale how these three came about in particular. Missed my chance on that, too.

Riot's next two albums (Narita and Fire Down Under) were stronger albums overall but neither contained any truly classic tracks, although if you haven't got them you must hunt them down. You really must.

Rock City is available to listen to on Spotify so if you're a rock fan and you don't know these songs check them out before you do anything else and smile wistfully at the marvellous guitar playing of the late great Mark Reale.

Review of The Oceans We Are Drowned In by One Star Closer

This album may be the most remarkable album I've reviewed since I started working for Alternative Matter.

Remarkable because it appears to be the work of Vlad Petkevich, a one-man-band post-rock/ambient project from Minsk, Belarus.

Remarkable because that previous sentence is the sum total of information on One Star Closer/Vlad I have managed to find on the internet. The band's Facebook page has just 14 likes. And all the text is in Russian so I have no idea what those 14 people are saying about the album. Lucky for me the album and track titles are in English.

Remarkable because the music is of exceptionally high quality, superbly played and well-produced, albeit with what I assume are deliberate crackles as if it were on good old vinyl.

First track Sorry, It's Not About Space And Universe is simply gorgeous. Absolutely heavenly-sounding guitars twinkling away before drums enter playing almost a marching beat. Then after a couple of minutes we get some noisier, layered guitar and the whole thing continues to be gorgeous. The only downside is that it only lasts a little over three minutes in total.

Second track starts with piano and strings. If Vlad Petkevich is playing all this he is a special talent.

Third track starts with more piano, playing a lovely, lilting melody. Fourth track is similar to the others but doesn't reel repetitive, at least not in a bad way.

Fifth track Her Name Was Tragedy is piano and strings but has sampled some Michelle Pfeiffer dialogue from the movie I Am Sam. This serves to highlight the soundtrack quality of the music, which is no bad thing at all.

Okay, so you get the idea. The rest of the tracks follow this established pattern but all have a unique quality that stops the album getting dull. And as mentioned before, the skill involved in every part of this makes it more than worthwhile.

I just wish I knew more about One Star Closer and Vlad Petkevich.

Did he compose all the music himself? Did he play all the instruments? If not, who did? And did he record and produce everything himself sitting in his bedroom, which seems unlikely, or did he go into a studio? Which studio? Who paid for it?

And did he get permission to sample dialogue from a couple of movies?

Anyhoo, my fervent hope is that Vlad gets to read this and provide some answers.

The man may well be a musical genius and in five years everyone will know his name. I wouldn't be surprised. It feels like being at the birth of the universe.

I can confidently say that if you consider yourself any kind of a post-rock/ambient fan - however you interpret the term - then you will love this album.