Elysion - Someplace Better.

Another Greek band! And what’s this? It’s not black metal! One of the most unique underground gothic metal bands, Elysion, are finally back with their overdue sophomore release, Someplace Better. I was beginning to think that they were going to end up being another one-album-wonder group that vanished into thin air after it came to be 2012 without any notable updates other than an EP compiled of live and acoustic tracks. Yes, that’s right, I’ve known about these fuckers since I received a copy of their debut album in 2009 for review through the webzine I was writing for at the time (those of you that know my history well can easily guess which webzine). Although their first album isn’t anything over-the-top outstanding, it was more than enough to get me pumped for the band’s next release.

Well 2014 is here and they have finally put out what they should’ve put out years ago. I don’t know much about the band’s background info and don’t really care about it either because I don’t love these guys, their last effort was average, why should I waste my time when I could be drooling over the musical backgrounds of Karl Sanders and Devin Townsend? Moving on, the band have managed to keep their logo, which is good because it’s not some boring ass font like a lot of these other gothic metal bands use. The intro to the first song sounds like they held up a microphone to a stereo playing a Lacuna Coil song. The signature eerie harmonies that Christina Scabbia is known for appear in numerous places all throughout the first track (and the whole album really). But besides that, there isn’t really other Lacuna Coil carbon-copy shit that’s obvious enough for me to hear. The slow, heavy, dark chugging riffs aren’t really Lacuna Coil shit as much as they are a gothic metal thing because every gothic metal band I’ve ever heard (I only listen to a dozen or so bands from this genre) does this.

I never really put much shit on the vocals of their first album because I didn’t really know what the generic gothic metal sound was at the time. So I’m going to put that record out of the picture and stop comparing/contrasting. Probably the thing about Someplace Better that bothers me more than anything else is the vocalist. I don’t know what it is about her, but her voice is so unique, yet so uninteresting. Don’t get me wrong, her voice is PERFECT for Elysion’s sound, but because this style of music puts so much emphasis on the female vocals, she seems to come up a bit short. She’s not out-of-tune, she has power, she expresses emotion, and she has a great dynamic range. There’s just something about her voice that makes it easily forgotten and never sticks to you in the way that singers like Floor Jansen and Simone Simons do. It’s not the absence of the operatic singing that a lot of these chicks like to do, that’s not something I require in a female singer. The issue I’m having is that she sounds so “generic” and ordinary, but I can’t find anyone else that sounds anything like her!

When listening to this record, the perfect harmony between the vocals, keyboards, guitars, and drums put you in a headlock and hold you in tight until the last track has finished. Then, once it’s over and the room has fallen silent, you completely forget what you just listened to. There’s nothing memorable about this album despite the solidity and crispness of the well-composed music. I’ve had to listen to this album over and over so many fucking times because if I go for more than one hour without listening to it, I’ll completely forget what it sounded like and how it captured me on that personal musical level.

The frilly keyboards are perfectly placed in the background where they should be. They don’t take the forefront like a lot of halfwit bands are doing these days. The keyboards help provide a beautiful atmosphere that, when mixed with the melodic crunch of the guitars, creates a beautiful cacophony of sound that encircles you. But like I said before, once the album finishes, it all vanishes into thin air like it was never there in the first place. There’s no after-effect, the album doesn’t leave you with any feeling, nothing like that. When you finish the album, the feeling you get is the feeling that you had before you pressed play.

If you’re a gothic metal enthusiast or love female-fronted bands, this is definitely something you need to check out because this is one of the stronger gothic metal releases I’ve heard in years. A lot of these bands have been growing dry (i.e. Sirenia, etc.) and this new Elysion album is like a breath of fresh air for someone that rarely hears a truly great symphonic or gothic metal album. This is one of the better Greek bands and I would give this album an above-average score of 14/20. The reason it’s so high is because although it’s very forgettable, it’s a fantastic piece nonetheless and does a great job of capturing the precise feeling it wants to. 

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

I guess that since I’ve just been listening to Katatonia and other similar bands like Opeth, Before the Dawn, Porcupine Tree, and Sirenia, that it’s time that I shared my opinion on one of my all-time favorite albums. I initially intended on writing this review after I saw Katatonia live in October when they opened for Opeth, but I guess I forgot to follow through. Katatonia and Opeth (my favorite band) are “brothers” (from the same country, best friends since the early years, probably even went to school together). There are very few other examples of bands with relationships like this; the only others that I know about are After Forever and Epica, Bring me the Horizon and Architects, and INSERT. Mikael Akerfeldt was the original vocalist for Kataklysm until his (at that time his side project) Opeth started taking off and he decided to leave Kataklysm to focus on Opeth. But obviously there were no hard feelings at all between the two bands because they still tour together and even have had some members work together in Bloodbath.

Here’s a disclaimer that I need to throw out there before you assume that Katatonia is one of my favorite bands. I actually like this album more than the band. It’s because Katatonia has only released two albums that have truly blown me away (this one and the one preceding it). I’m not sure what clicked in the band’s head that caused them to jump from slightly above average music to releasing two of the best albums I’ve ever heard. That’s why I’m glad that this album was my first impression (although The Great Cold Distance would have done just as well). If Katatonia can continue on to consistently release albums like their past two, my opinion on the BAND will soar.

As simple as their music seems, I’ve had a nearly impossible time categorizing this band and feeling that it’s accurate. I currently have them under gothic metal because the other bands I have there sound more similar to Katatonia than any other bands. But then again, when I have trouble deciding where to put a band, I just put it under one of my progressive genres (progressive metal/black/death/rock). But not that it actually matters at all, I just like to keep my music organized so that when I’m in the mood for a certain kind of music (like something really heavy and bombarding but with a black metal feel) I can just click on that genre (black death) and have it shuffle all of the songs I have categorized there.

But enough about that stuff, I’m here to talk about the album, am I not? If someone were to ask me what musician stands out the most as being the absolute best, I would quickly respond with THEIR SINGER! Their singer has one of the most paralyzing and beautiful voices I’ve ever heard in my life. Just listen to any of the damn songs off this album and you will understand (and most likely agree with) what I say the instant his voice makes contact with your eardrums. The vocal harmonizations leave me speechless and have brought me (literally) to tears and always cause a huge smile to form on my face. I know it may seem like I’m over exaggerating and “gushing” over this album, but remember, everyone has music out there that stir emotions of that much strength; it’s almost always different for everyone, this just happens to be one of the few bands out there that make that emotional connection with me.

The overall sound of everything on the record couldn’t be any more perfect. There is tons of bass, the guitar distortions are extremely heavy and thick, the drums work as the skeleton of the music without overpowering anything, and the guitar solos rise above everything with extreme precision to be heard by all. The guitar distortion is very meaty and even has a bit of a mushy sound although you can tell there is a lot of crunch. I guess a mostly accurate description of the distortion that the guitars have is if you have a very crunchy distortion and slice off the high end/treble. The drummer uses a bass boom that I didn’t know about until I played Forsaker with my subwoofer hooked up to my computer. Thankfully the band doesn’t overuse this bass tone like other bands tend to do (i.e. Emmure, BMTH, Element, etc.)

The song that got me completely hooked was the first track. I was expecting something extremely mellow and controlled; kind of like Damnation by Opeth. But obviously I was wrong when I was crushed by the extremely heavy breakdown used as the intro. But it then instantly transitions into more of what I was expecting, but so much better that I can’t even begin to accurately describe. As their singer’s voice pierces the air I realized that I wasn’t prepared for something this good, but I didn’t have the motivation to press the stop button on my keyboard. The chorus was the thing that leaped out of my computer speakers and spherically encircled me with an atmospheric and depressive wall of sound that I will never forget. That was the only song from that album that I listened to for almost a whole month because I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle the rest of the album. The guitar solo in that song left me completely dumbfounded and utterly confused that I hadn’t been shown this band before. I forgot to mention that I’ve known the name Katatonia for years, but I’ve only known their music for a little over half a year.

Like I had predicted before, the paralyzing melodic beauty doesn’t stop until the record is finished. Literally every mood I can think of is covered at least once for the duration of the album. Some of those moods that stand out to me the most are anger, depression, grief, happiness, peace, relaxation, confusion, pain, and numbness. This is a record that should not be passed up by ANYONE whether they like music or not. When they played Idle Blood, July, and Forsaker live (all the songs I wished for) when I saw them last October, I was hooked and have been since then. I would give this a perfect score and would recommend this to anyone and everyone whether I know them or not.  

Ashes Of Erin-This Somber Eve

Ashes of Erin is one of the bands that I discovered in my gothic/symphonic metal phase. I found this group along with Xandria, Elysion, Edenbridge, Elis, and Whyzdom via Spirit of Metal. The thing about this band that’s not common amongst the gothic metal and symphonic metal scene is that they’re American, unlike most others being European. They also have a sound that I can’t really find in many other groups. I’ve been listening to Ashes of Erin for a couple of months now and they’ve grown on me greatly.

When it comes to gothic metal, I’m used to the more melodic sound that comes out of bands like Katatonia and Sirenia. Ashes of Erin has a heavier, more angry sound. I haven’t found much background information on any of the members regarding their musical history, but there is a small biography on their MySpace that doesn’t give much helpful info. So I’m writing this from a perspective of a listener that knows nothing but the members’ first names and the sound of their music. There are a lot of abstract sounds in this record regarding the weird chords and out of tune guitar lines and singing. Now I don’t know how much of this is on purpose or if it’s all just because they’re new to the music world; but the majority of it sounds intentional. Now just like almost every other band in their genre, there is a hot female vocalist involved.

Jenna doesn’t have that soft, mushy, and sometimes operatic voice that most other female metal vocalists have (like Simone Simons, Tarja Turunen, and Floor Jansen). I’m having trouble coming up with a singer that has a similar voice to her, so I guess Jenna’s voice is more unique than I had originally thought. She is though, similar to Lacey Mosley of Flyleaf. Not in the sound of their voices, but they both have a gut-wrenching scream that sends chills down your back. I did not see this coming when I listened to the second song off the album. Here is a link to it so that you can see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGUw_BihQc0

The songwriting is excellent. It has an abstract sound that shifts from a very angry sound to an eerie melodic ballad. The harmonization is great and it fits the music perfectly, but it’s not my favorite style. I really wish this band takes off so that I can see what their live performances are like, because they’ve apparently only played local shows, mainly as an opening act for bigger bands on a US tour. And if they do end up going on tours, people will love them. My favorite song off of this album is the melodic song Distorted Revelation. This album gets 16/20.