Another Black Day - Another Black Day

I have waited almost three years to write a review on this album out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to put my thoughts into words accurately. So I decided it’s time for me to man up and attempt to tell you guys about this group. First off, I would like to say that on Spirit of Metal, I was the only member that had this band on my favorite bands list until I started telling people about them. Having discovered this album when I was primarily listening to nu metal and alternative metal (most notably Korn, Breaking Benjamin, Staind, Flyleaf, Godsmack, and Slipknot), there couldn’t have been a more perfect time for this album to be released (2008). After listening to this record almost constantly for about a year and a half, I realized that I had not heard anything from them….at all. So I looked them up and saw that the “anotherblackday.net” was gone like it had never been there (it was all pink and in Chinese) and their Facebook account had been untouched for years without any announcements or updates regarding a breakup, hiatus, or anything at all.

The commercial success of this album was minimal, with one hit song that got a reasonable spot on the U.S. rock charts; but it didn’t stay there for very long. I can tell because there isn’t anyone that I’ve shown this song to that recognized it. This is extremely shocking to me (and just about everyone I’ve introduced this band to) that they would have so little success and would just disappear out of thin air without notice of any kind (that I know of). So now that I’m done giving you the basic background of the Floridian alternative metal band, Another Black Day, now comes the part of the review I’m worried about screwing up, the music.

Where the fuck do I start?? Let’s run through a basic overview of their sound. There’s nothing too unique about them regarding to their sound; I didn’t have any trouble at all deciding what to categorize them. But even though this young band decided it wasn’t time for them to stride forth and push the limits of the genre, they still created something amazing within the realms. The guitars are EXTREMELY crunchy, making the music sound heavy as a truck-sized block of lead. This is evened out perfectly by sandpaper-rough vocals that still pierce the air with lazar precision and beauty that is filled with emotion. The drummer is amazing for a band of such little seniority and serves as a titanium-strong backbone for the rest of the band to build on top of.

The guitarists are amazing. The rhythm guitarist’s part is never repetitive, boring, or overly simple which works as an amazing background of anger and fury. The cool thing about this band is that the two guitarists take turn during solos, and I can’t tell the difference between the two. Why is this a good thing? It’s a good thing because it shows that the two guitarists are perfectly in sync with each other and think as one mind by using the same distortions, effects, styles, and complexity. This is extremely difficult to do with any instrument and has rarely been pulled off successfully (in my opinion), one of the most well-known examples of this is how all four of The Beatles got all of their singing voices to sound so similar to whenever they sing in unison, it just sounds like one person with a really powerful voice. And besides that, both of the guitarists demonstrate astonishing creativity and emotion all throughout the album.

Most of the songs seem to be about the struggles one experiences in a life of drug addiction and religious confusion. This is most apparent in the title song, Crickets, and Wicked Soul. The rest of the songs seem to basically just be venting of sadness and anger.

The song that was my favorite off the album when I first heard it and remains my favorite track is the title song, Another Black Day. This is one of those songs that pull my emotions to seemingly limitless heights. This track has literally EVERYTHING that I find attractive in music: it’s longer than three minutes, it’s filled with emotion that is heard with ease in all the instruments, it has mind-blowing vocal and guitar harmonizations, it’s progressive, it’s not repetitive, it has tons of bass, none of the instruments drown out the rest of the band, the band is tight, and they sound like a BAND, not just a bunch of musicians. This is the definition of musical perfection in my personal dictionary and I would believe that many of you can at least mostly agree with that definition. That alone should have you listening to that first track by now (if you haven’t, DO IT!).

The band shows their much heavier metal side with ultra-crunchy guitars and double kick drumming in songs like Hallowed, Anymore, Take Back, Crickets, Idols, and many more. Obviously all of the songs are in the same key, which isn’t a bad thing at all as long as the music is still kept interesting. For those of you that like the heavier alternative metal stuff, Idols is the song for you. The guitar intro pretty much shows you right off the bat that these guys mean business. I’ve never heard a guitar distortion with so much crunch in that kind of music in my life, obviously these aren’t guys that just think they’re “heavy rock with some metal”, they know they’re metal and aren’t afraid to show it. Remember, I’m probably a bigger rock fan than you so don’t think that I’ll like something less just because it’s not metal. The center of all the vocalist’s anger is confined in this track by showing tense vocals filled with frustration and hate towards our corrupted world.

The single off this album that got some air time (mainly in Florida) is Wicked Soul. Well although I’m not surprised by the fact that they got any air time at all, I’m puzzled why this was the song that spoke out to the critics as being the best song instead of the first song. Then again, besides the title track, I guess I would have to say that this is my next favorite song off this astonishing shiny disk. Wicked Soul is the only song with acoustic guitars and truly soft and melodic parts. The cool thing is that they perfectly steadily build up to the explosion of distorted guitars and gravely vocals in the chorus, but still succeed in remaining soft and ballad-like. This is actually where the singer is at his highest point, in Wicked Soul. I guess because vocals that are always belted out and almost yelled don’t speak out to me as much as softer vocals with more emotion and delicacy.

Here’s something for you power metal fans: listen to the last song and tell me what it reminds you of. Why does From the Ashes remind me of a combination of Symphony X and Nevermore?? I guess it’s because it has the song structure complexity and technicality of Symphony X and has the darkness and heaviness of Nevermore spread on top of it. Regardless of whether that sounds good to you or not, I fucking love it, and NOTHING will change that.

In conclusion, this is an album that I bought the instant I heard it in 2008 when it was released and continues to be one of my favorite albums of all time. There is still a lot of things that I love about this album that remain unexplainable. I wish I could put my FULL opinion of this album into words, but I can’t no matter how hard I try. I guess it’s one of those things where it’s not a specific trait or thing you like about it, it’s just that you feel a special connection to the music when you listen to it that you can’t explain. I know that there will be tons of people that don’t get the same connection with this band that I do, but this is still a record that you should give a good honest try before you judge it. Lastly, if there is ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about what happened to this band or where they are now, PLEASE leave a comment because I need to know. I would give this a perfect score (just in case I didn’t make it clear enough).  

Sunn O))) - ØØ Void

Sunn O))) is one of the most unique groups of all time and I am proud to say that despite what I probably have made you believe about my views on music, they are also one of my favorite bands of all time. Sunn O))) is a group of slightly older guys that are freakishly crazy about enormous tube amps with speaker cabinets the size of a small refrigerator. In fact, they’re named after a brand of guitar and bass amps that were made from the 60s through the mid-80s. For those of you that can’t figure out how the hell to pronounce their name, it’s simply pronounced “sun”. When people ask me if I like Sunn O))), I always say that I LOVE both the band and the amp. I’m a bassist and have actually had the pleasure to hook my fretless bass guitar up to one of these dinosaurs; even though I have yet to experience the pleasure of having one as my own. This is the re-release of their first album and I currently own it on 180 gram vinyl.

If you’re going to tell me that “this isn’t music! It’s just all noise and guitar feedback!” you’d be right. Although music knows no limits, I personally don’t consider Sunn O))) to be musical at all (but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people out there that do). For those of you that haven’t read any of my Xasthur reviews, I said that the reason people like this stuff isn’t because of the musicians’ skill or creativity, they like it because of the emotions that it creates within the listener. Xasthur is a great example of that, although there are tons of creative guitar lines. Sunn O))) on the other hand takes this statement to extreme heights. Here’s what I want you to do, look up either this album or the song Flight of the Behemoth, turn off ALL the lights, and play the music at a loud volume (as loud as you feel like). The people that listen to this music surrender to it, letting the music encircle them and flow through them freely. Sunn O))) hypnotizes me whenever I listen to them; I get sucked in by them more than any other band has ever before. Warning: results may vary, I’m guaranteeing that the music will create strong emotions if you let it; I’m not saying the listening experience will always be pleasant. In my case, though, it’s pleasant every time.

This particular record consists of two guitars and a bass guitar that are tuned down so low I can’t even tell what the hell it is. There are no drums anywhere in the album, making the ambience and atmosphere reach extreme levels while leaving virtually no tempo for you to nod your head to; all you can do is just sit, close your eyes, and listen. When I listen to this band, I’m not looking for them to keep me engaged, not be repetitive, or be creative. In fact, I literally can’t due to the fact of not being able to acknowledge or think while listening to them because of them virtually encircling me and pulling me in with no signs of letting me go.

Obviously, I got the vinyl version because I think that it sounds better than an electronic copy or a CD. For those of you old farts out there that lived through the 70s, you should be able to understand what I’m saying when I tell you my dad is an “audiophile”. For those of you that have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, there were two types of vinyl LPs: regular ones, and audiophile ones (yes I know that there are others like quadraphonic, etc.). Audiophile LPs sound literally 100 times better than regular LPs because they weigh more, sort of like how today’s Super Audio CDs sound a million times better than regular CDs. And when a person is reffered to as an audiophile, it means they’re a freak about super high-quality sound. When I handed my dad the record, he could tell right off the bat that it was audiophile grade because of how heavy it was. So now I know that 180 gram vinyl is today’s way of saying audiophile. And you can tell when listening to it that it sounds SO MUCH BETTER! The amount of bass is inconceivable and everything about the sound couldn’t be any more clean and crisp.

Here’s another thing about Sunn O))) that you might find surprising. Sunn O)) is HUGE. They play in huge venues and have played sold-out shows around the world. Why the hell is there so many people racing to get tickets to their shows? Obviously you can tell just by looking at the almost immediate success of this band that there was an underlying hunger for this kind of music already stirring amongst metalheads. Their concerts are described as having loads of stage smoke and the music being played at EXTREMELY high volumes. I WILL BE THE FIRST PERSON TO BUY A TICKET TO THEIR NEXT SEATTLE SHOW!!

The album consists of four songs that drag on for more than 15 minutes; which is the reason why this is a double LP with one song on each side. The album artwork on the re-release is astonishing and much more attractive and professional than the original artwork. I could go on and on in detail about my experiences listening to this band, but this is a review that is supposed to motivate YOU to find out what kind of experience this band will present to you. Like I said before, the experience is different for everyone, and this isn’t a time where you pay attention to the music part, it’s for opening yourself to the monotonous droning of guitars and letting it enclose you.

Even though the monotonous droning of guitar feedback and low bass tones can get old after a while, this is a listening experience that no one should be able to say they’ve never gone through. My love for this album is immense and I hope to see them in concert very soon because I will not be able to wait very much longer. I would HIGHLY recommend this to EVERYONE; but I’m not going to guarantee you’ll like it at all. I would give this album a perfect score and would like to see you leave a comment saying you own a physical copy of this album. And keep in mind that it’s available on CD too; I got the LP because it’s a “cream” colored version and it was relatively inexpensive. 

Emmure - Speaker of the Dead

Emmure has become one of the biggest and most recognizable metal bands of the 21^st century. I’ve known about them since 2009, when they released Felony; of which I was minimally impressed by. Even there are a lot of people that absolutely despise Emmure for obvious reasons that I will lay out in detail in this review, their fan base has encircled the globe at an inconceivable level considering that they’ve only been known (by most) for about five years. When I first heard Felony, I was kind of turned away by the creepy voices made by the vocalist (I was 14 at the time). But then it started to grow on me, and it was all I could listen to...for about a day or so, then it got boring.

Why is there such a clash of extreme opposite views on Emmure? Most of this question can be answered by taking a look at the ages of the listeners. The whole “deathcore” and “metalcore-styled breakdown” thing has only been around since the turn of the century, making the younger generation that was born in the 1990s (myself included) the most vulnerable victims. And if you listen to Emmure, it doesn’t take very long to figure out that the songs are pretty much just breakdown after breakdown with some abstract fills placed here and there. This is the exact same problem I have with Meshuggah, except the thing about Meshuggah is that they have amazing musicians, just poor songwriting skills. Emmure has generally mediocre and average-skilled musicians and poor songwriting skills, but better production (i.e. more bass).

The reason why I don’t COMPLETELY hate these bands is because they’re perfect for when I’m just in the mood for breakdowns (I know a lot of you have those odd moments; some more than others). So this album especially is good for those moments because the breakdowns are superb. If quality song structure, musicianship, and creativity is what you’re looking for, this is not what you want.

Unfortunately, the fact that all of the songs sound almost exactly the same (which is good if you just want it as background music) makes it extremely difficult to point out songs that stand out to me…well, because none of them do! There are some songs that have really annoying sounds that drone on for the majority of the length like Demons with Ryu and My Name is Thanos with that high-pitched guitar sound, Solar Flare Homicide with dubstep sounds that unfortunately are underdeveloped and crappy, and the high-pitched tone that keeps popping up in Drug Dealer Friend (not to mention the retarded song name).

The vocalist is pretty average; not much to say about him other than that he does a lot of normal/clean speaking. The drummer does some fancy footwork in some of the songs, but other than that he just hits the symbol and occasionally hits the snare; I honestly rarely hear him play anything other than those three drums (kick drums, symbol, and snare). If you ask me, that’s not something that I would say fully deserves the utter fame they’ve been receiving.

Overall, this album grows old and gets boring after the seventh song. This album has a whopping total of 15 tracks (a.k.a. breakdowns). But I’m not saying that this is a total disaster; in fact, this is Emmure’s best album yet! There’s just not much to it other than breakdowns and huge ear-splitting bass booms. This album totals out at 9/20 on my scale. 

Obscura - Omnivium

I discovered Obscura literally weeks before the release of this album. So after I checked out Cosmogenesis and Retribution, I was excited for Omnivium! There isn’t much background information at all concerning this album other than that their godly bassist left the band for reasons unknown. There wasn’t nearly as much promotion and advertising as there was for Cosmogenesis, most likely because all they needed was to get the world’s attention with Cosmogenesis and just let things flow on their own from there (which is exactly what happened). Since I had just discovered Obscura right before this album’s release, I looked at other reviewer’s opinions on Cosmogenesis and especially what their hopes for Obscura’s next album would be, and almost all of them said “less guitar ‘wankery’” and “more fusing of other genres”. The first track on this album proves that Obscura did all of this.

Septuagint starts out with an acoustic intro that sounds like Opeth with a mixture of folk. The hardest part about having one of these kinds of acoustic intros is making the transition to the distorted guitars/metal part of the song and making it go smooth and not sound abrupt. Obscura pull this off PERFECTLY by jumping into a gothic-sounding melodic death part that only further sucks you into the 55 minute tech death ecstasy known as Omnivium. There is also a part of the song that has acoustic background guitars that are led by the sweet smooth sound of Jeroen’s fretless bass.

The musician that improved the most during the writing process of this album would definitely be the vocalist. His sandpaper-rough screams pierce the wind with the precision of a lazar. His vocals sounded a little bit underdeveloped in Cosmogenesis and even sounded like he was straining his voice at times. In Omnivium, he sounds a thousand times more confident and powerful. But here’s the thing that bothers me: the amount of emotion that is contained within his screams is much less now; probably because the band is now using their music more of a money maker and a creative expression than as an emotion output.

The reason why it seems the bassist got turned down is because he set his guitar at a deeper, fatter pitch to give the album more body on the lower end since it was lacking in that area on their other albums. Some of those that LOVED Cosmogenesis’ high level of technicality and speed were somewhat disappointed with Omnivium’s much lower technicality rate. I don’t really see why this is a bad thing at all because it’s a way of showing that Obscura isn’t totally dependent on extremely high complexity levels and are fully capable of making amazing death metal without having loads of it. Of course though, technicality is a big part of Obscura’s signature sound, so it’s definitely possible to have Obscura songs that are too simple and slow.

Ocean Gateways is my favorite song off this album. This is one of Obscura’s most complex songs ever. But most of the complexity doesn’t lay within the guitar solos or the drum lines; it lies within the overall song structure. Just listen to all of the smoothly transitioned tempo changes and mood alterations that take place throughout the track! It’s amazing! Also, the thing that got me hooked on this song is that their vocalist does super deep growls that send chills down my back instead of his traditional mid-ranged scream.

This is an album that is impossible to turn down and is a must-buy. Obscura shows major changes in their sound while still managing to keep high levels of speed and technicality to make the fans happy. Omnivium is what some might call “tech death ecstasy.” I would give this a score of 18/20. 

Obscura - Retribution

Obscura already had fans from across the globe by the time they came out with their debut full-length, Retribution, in 2006. The general public/professional feedback was…well let’s say they all loved it. Obscura would then go on to tour for two years, make some money, and rest at home before releasing their second album three years later in 2009. Coming from the country that is the home to more metalheads than anywhere else in the world, Obscura already had TONS of fan support and love to help give them that extra boost that every band wishes for in order to climb to the top. I personally love this album A LOT, but I will say that this is their least impressive album.

Obscura is made up of mainly musicians that were previously (or currently) in other big-name metal bands such as Blotted Science, Necrophagist, Defeated Sanity, Spawn of Possession, and Pestilence. Just because of that note, you can tell that this is a band made up of mature and serious musicians that know what they’re doing. So after lots of promotion and countless weekend performances that went on for roughly four years, Obscura felt that it was time to release the full-length that their fans had been desperately waiting for. When you look at the list of former members, you will see that Obscura has had over eight bassists, six guitarists, three drummers, and two vocalists. How the hell does a band like that burn through so many musicians so fast?? That’s a question that I will probably never be able to answer unless I get the opportunity to ask the band myself.

The overall sound quality of the album isn’t amazing, but it’s not bad at all. The drums are what annoy me. The kick drums have that clicking sound instead of the fat meaty sound that they’re supposed to have. But other than that, the drums aren’t too loud and it’s clear enough to easily be able to tell that they have a high-end musician on the throne. The sound of the distortion that they have put on the bass is really interesting and it’s actually what gives the lower end of the album tons of crunch. I love it when death metal bands (especially tech death) put some kind of distortion or effect on the bass guitar because it’s what gives the music that trippy/psychedelic technical death sound it’s supposed to have. There really isn’t anything special about the guitar distortion; it’s not annoying at all, but there really isn’t anything about it at all that speaks out to me.

The album starts off by showing you just how brutal and chaotic these guys can get with the track Humankind. The vocals that seem to be slightly out of time are what I like about this track along with the huge complex guitar chords and the unrelenting blast beat drumming. The thing about Retribution that makes it completely different from Obscura’s other albums is that there are more abstract and complex chords and less shredding. These abstract chords give the music a really ambient and sometimes even creepy feeling to send chills of utter satisfaction down the spine of the listener. There is a nice mix of tracks with unrelenting brutality and technicality and slower tracks to cool things down a bit to let the recover and prepare themselves for the next bombardment.

Usually I’m not one that would like to see covers on a band’s debut. But because Obscura covered these three songs so well, I have to say that this album wouldn’t be as amazing without them. They cover three classic death metal songs: Lack of Comprehension by Death, Synthetically Revived by Suffocation, and God of Emptiness by Morbid Angel. Their lead guitarist reflects Chuck Schuldiner’s licks with crystal clear clarity and understanding like a mirror fresh out of the factory. Obscura then opens the floodgates and lets loose the brutality in their cover of one of Suffocation’s first songs; making sure not to leave any survivors. They then strive to cover a more traditional death metal song by choosing a track off of Morbid Angel’s third album.

This album is an outstanding piece of work that fully and clearly expresses that these German metalheads are serious and mean business. This is not what I would recommend to someone who has never heard Obscura before. If you are new to this band, get the album Cosmogenesis (I’ve also written a review on that album). Eventually evolving into one of the most technical and most famous technical death bands on earth, this marks the beginning of Obscura’s journey uphill. I’ll tell you this, Retribution is amazing, but it’s Obscura’s worst album by far. I would give this album 17/20. 

Aborted Fetus - Fatal Dogmatic Damage

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed an underground brutal death album, so I thought I should let you know about a young brutal death band known as Aborted Fetus. This band is one out of many bands I discovered via Brutal Bands’ website along with Element, Arsebreed, Putridity, Lust of Decay, Melting Flesh, Insidious Decrepancy, and tons of other bands with the ability to demolish your eardrums. It seems that most of the Russian bands I hear tend to be on the brutal and gore side of things (i.e. Katalepsy, ). Although from Russia, most of Aborted Fetus’ fans are located in Germany, America, and The Netherlands.

Aborted Fetus is one of those ultra-pure brutal death bands with not too much else added on. I love how so many of these obscure death metal bands have such professional and high-quality recordings! Seriously, all those black metal guys are saying that they “can’t afford” adequate recording equipment (and I know they do that somewhat on purpose) and these death metal bands are coming out with albums that have the production quality of Century Media bands! Aborted Fetus is one of the best examples of that pristine and crisp sound quality that makes audiophiles like me very happy faced.

Their drummer doesn’t stick to blast beats. In fact, he rarely even does them at all. He does keep the fast (but not super-fast) double kick going for the majority of the record to keep the adrenaline of the listener going and to keep the pit moving at their shows. I honestly don’t know if the drummer is off-time or not during some parts because he has times where he starts doing random shit out of nowhere and it doesn’t seem like it fits, but at the same time it’s something that one could consider predictable. But at least the drummer doesn’t seem TOTALLY lost; he’s a good fit for the band and he’s what I would consider an “average, but good for the genre” brutal death drummer.

If you know what your average brutal death/death grind vocalist sounds like, that’s what this guy sounds like. For those of you experienced and knowledgeable brutal death fans that want details on what this guy sounds like; he does inhales like all the others do, his inhales tend to be more of a growl than a pig squeal, but there’s still an obvious amount of pig squeal sound. This is actually my favorite type of inhaled vocals because it isn’t a super annoying pig squeal, but it’s not so deep that it sounds like the vocalist drank too much root beer before entering the studio.

The guitars are very deep and EXTREMELY crunchy (you won’t hear the entire crunch until you listen closely for the first time). I have no idea how the hell these guys managed to get that rough of a sound out of the guitars without completely demolishing the low-end. The best answer I can come up with is that they turned the bass guitar up really loud and they gave it a super smooth and soft sound to even out the crunchiness of the guitars.

There’s only one bad thing about this album and that is that the songs are WAY too similar. For some people, an album like this seems to take FOREVER to get through and amazing albums seem too short. For me, albums like this aren’t as engaging and they don’t hold on to your attention for very long. And since I have ADD, my main attention goes elsewhere and then when I look back at the album to see how much of it has passed by, it’s on the last song and it feels like I just turned it on five minutes ago!

Other than that disappointing factor, this is pretty good for an obscure brutal death album. I would honestly recommend this primarily to those of you that are more experienced in this area of metal, mainly because this isn’t anywhere near what I would want to have as a first impression for someone who isn’t familiar with the really brutal metal. I would give this album 14/20. 

Devin Townsend is a Goose

Devin Townsend makes some of the best faces. Check these out and you should get my point:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6185/6070675982_ba910f7de7.jpg
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/soulflypremiere/devinsolo.jpg
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http://www.thrashhits.com/wp-content/gallery/ki/2011_11_10_0436TH.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/DevTownsendJan2510.jpg
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http://img.fotocommunity.com/images/Szene/Heavy-Metal/Devin-Townsend-live-a24325578.jpg
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OPETH TOUR

Mastodon just announced in an interview that they will be headlining a tour and will be bringing Opeth (my favorite band) and Ghost as opening acts! I'm not much of a Mastodon fan, but Opeth is enough to make me pre-order tickets.

Random - Todo.s Los Colores Del

For those of you that love progressive metal, this is the thing for you. This appropriately-named band is one of the best new progressive metal bands I’ve heard since Mutiny Within. I’m not saying this band is flawless, because it’s impossible to be experimental and progressive and not make some sucky decisions. I received a promo copy of this album months ago. The reason why I waited so long to write the damn review was because this album took so long to fully comprehend and understand. There’s a lot of stuff about this album that I can’t seem to get. Unless I interview the band, I’ll probably never know why the hell this band chose to combine some of the genres they did. I can’t give you an overall summary of the sound this album puts out because it doesn’t just give off one sound, it gives off…I don’t even know, I can’t think of how to put it, just read on.

As few of you already know, I listen to a lot of the mainstream metal stuff like Korn, Godsmack, Breaking Benjamin, etc. In the first song, after the 40-second intro made up of a single high-pitched guitar harmonic, the first word that came to my mind was “Korn”. I’m not kidding, Korn has been one of my favorite bands since I was 13 years old, and never in my days have I heard an underground metal band use Korn’s crunchy sound as an influence. I’m not saying that’s bad at all (and I might be wrong about the whole Korn influence thing all together), but that’s not something I was expecting at all. I guess I judged them too much when I saw their name; expecting them to sound more like Iwrestledabearonce or Dir en Grey.

That’s not to say that Random wasn’t a good name to put on top of their music, because every single track is something completely different. Of course, they successfully stick to a signature, recognizable sound that they use as a blueprint for all the songs on the record. But other than that thin layer that every song shares, each track is its own type of cake, each with its own type of frosting.

The vocalist is fucking weird; that’s all I can think of to say about him. He’s not bad at all, he’s just really weird and has one of the most unique voices I’ve ever heard in the progressive metal area. I have no idea what the hell is going on in the drummer’s head because he seems to be in a different world; but at the same time he is a major contributor and perfect addition to this album. The lead guitarist does some crazy shredding that seems to instantly switch into a David Gilmour sound therefore earning my applause. Random is one of those examples of a band where when you look at each individual member, you think “Where the hell did this guy leave his brain? He’s completely lost!” But when you put them together, it sounds amazing!

The second song has a little more of an industrial-sounding twist to it. I guess you could describe it as being a combination of Sevendust, Korn, and Marilyn Manson (all of which I love). Not only that, this song is extremely abstract (which is stupid for me to say because isn’t the whole album??). For the rest of the album you hear stuff sounding like Meshuggah, Hypocrisy, Mushroomhead, Kreator, Opeth, Primus, Soundgarden, Mudvayne, and Hellyeah. Overall, this isn’t an album I would recommend to people that have a hard time keeping up with really diverse music. The reason why I’m saying that is because there are only half a dozen other examples of so many different types of music compressed into one album; it was even too much for me at first! But other than that, I would highly recommend that you support this band and get this album because it’s truly a one-of-a kind experience. I would give this record 15/20. 

Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God

Amon Amarth is one of the most famous extreme metal bands of all-time. They have album sales and concert attendance that has dominated that of Death, The Black Dahlia Murder, Dimmu Borgir, Epica, DevilDriver, Whitechapel, Behemoth, Arch Enemy, Meshuggah, and many other metal giants. This alone has proved to the world that they are one of the most successful and biggest death metal acts in existence. There’s only one problem when I get involved in a conversation about Amon Amarth, and that is that this is literally the only album that they have put out so far that has truly impressed me (let alone blow me away). I got this album around the time of its release in 2008; which was around the time where I really started getting into the more extreme metal genres. So this is an album I’ve been listening to for a little under five years. About two years ago I decided to get some of their previous albums and, to be honest, I wasn’t really that satisfied with what I heard. But the album I’m here to talk about is Twilight of the Thunder God.

When people ask me what “pure” melodic death sounds like, this is one of the first albums that comes to my mind. Some of you out there probably haven’t realized this yet but how can you get any purer of a melodic death metal sound than this? But I’m not saying that all the songs sound the same. In fact, there is a great amount of uniqueness and individuality that each song holds that keeps the listener engaged. When you look at the album as a whole, you can see a perfect balance of melodic areas and heavy areas as well as a balance of slow tempos and fast tempos. But when you look at each song individually, there isn’t much of a balance at all; it’s pretty much either one or the other. And of course there are a few songs that have a little bit of everything mixed in.

My absolute favorite thing about this album is the sound of the guitar distortion. I know I talk about this in pretty much all of my reviews and that some of you find it annoying and pointless; but it can actually have a huge influence on how much I enjoy the record. The guitar distortion on this album is extremely crunchy and rough; anyone with ears can hear that. But it also seems extremely smooth and even mushy. I absolutely love it and I don’t really know how many filters and effects they put on the guitars but it sounds really cool and it’s not something that can be found on any other album.

The song on this record that speaks out to me the most is the title track. The song has an intro that contains the epic lead guitar line that every Amon Amarth fan knows by heart. This is part of why this album and song was so successful, because the opening guitar riff gets stuck in your head so easily. The term “epic” is extremely difficult to truly define. It’s one of those things that can’t be put into words, but you know what it is after hearing it for a bit. I get questions like that from music “noobs” that ask questions like “what is melodic?” and “what is brutal?” The only way I can think of to answer those questions is to just play examples of “brutal” or “melodic” music and compare it to other songs that are less melodic/brutal/etc. The word I use to describe the title song (and actually the majority of the album) is “epic”. The best way I can describe it is that it’s filled with lots of tension and power, but still sticks to a relatively melodic sound.

An example of this album’s heavier side would be Where is your God? This song is the core of all the anger and rage that this record holds inside. If you want to hear a really angry melodic death song, look no more because this is the song for you. Before I got in the habit of listening to entire albums, I would only listen to a couple of songs off an album (minus a few records). For me, the only songs that I listened to off of this record is Twilight of the Thunder God and Where is your God? So obviously because of that, those are the songs that I’m most familiar with.

I stopped listening to this album for about a year or two because I was so distracted with all the new music I was discovering. Now that my music library contains over 22,000 songs, I can’t just choose one album to listen to; I chose a genre and put it on shuffle. Or I will often times combine three or four genres, put them on shuffle, and then just let my Zune play all throughout the day. I was re-introduced to this album in late 2009 when I was shuffling all my melodic death stuff. I had a big happy face on for the rest of the day.

When I got home from school that day, I decided to give Amon Amarth’s older material another go. Once again, nowhere near as impressive as this album. I don’t want to call this a fluke, but through my eyes, it kind of is. This album is truly a monstrous landmark in death metal history and an instant classic. In early 2010 this album received a gold certification after selling over 500,000 copies and has continued to surpass that number more and more since then. I would not be surprised if it eventually sold over 700,000+ copies. But album sales aren’t something that a band should be overly concerned about. The only reason why I told you the amount of success this album has received is to prove to you that I’m not just one of the few random guys that for some reason think this album is outstanding. This album is truly outstanding and gets my score of 17/20.