EXPERIMENTAL/POST METAL

Cloudkicker is an incredibly quality project by Ben Sharp, multi-instrumentalist from Columbus, Ohio, combining the heaviness and atonal metal grooves of bands like Meshuggah with beautiful post-metal and rock passages not unlike those from bands like Sigur Ros and The American Dollar. What makes this EP the standout from his discography is the quality of music, both technical and emotional, that Mr. Sharp can fit into slightly over 15 minutes. All these tracks are fantastic, although my favourite is '%', which has a beautiful crescendo, similar to a conventional post-rock song, although with a heavier and more fulfilled sound. My only real complaint with this EP is the length; obviously, I'm not going to come into an EP and expect a 60 minute album, but more would have been very nice.

The album opens with '#', which opens with a soft-ish drum rhythm leading into a guitar riff. The thumping bass soon comes in, with two more guitar riffs layered over the top. This continues, picking up more guitar and bass as it continues, all masterfully played. After this build-up, a perfectly executed guitar solo hops right in on top of brilliant drumming. Ben Sharp not only masters the guitar here, but bass and drums as well.

As I said, the second track, '%' is my favourite, and also the most well rounded. A thumping guitar rhythm opens up, and is then repeated with a different melody at a much softer pace. Then comes the repetition of the epic melody comes in, which crescendos throughout the tracks length, gaining more and more momentum to make a wonderful metal track. The playing is truly fantastic on this track, and is definitely the highlight of the EP, and I'd also dare to say the highlight in Cloudkicker's discography.

The EP closes with '$', another great metal track. The playing here is at its technical best for the album, a choir of slamming guitar, drums and bass perfectly interwoven to create a dense sound. This closes the EP well, although it doesn't have the same cutting sound as '%'. This is really just good ol' Cloudkicker doing his thing, a quality track.

This EP isn't a 5 star masterpiece, but its incredibly quality, and because its free, I'm giving it 4 stars.

-Joel

The three tracks The Axis of Perdition contribute with are in a twisted, dark and experimental extreme metal style. I´m thinking acts like Dødheimsgard, Void and Ephel Duath. Lots of atmospheric/ eerie samples, aggressive vocals, blasting drums and twisted/ adventurous riffing. The drums are programmed and while they are pretty well programmed it´s a minor complaint that there aren´t real drums on the EP. The sound quality isn´t professional but taking into consideration that this is a demo it´s still quite enjoyable. The most important feature on this demo is the mood though. It oozes dark atmosphere and it´s no surprise that the band´s primary lyrical themes evolve around H.P. Lovecraft novels and the Silent Hill computer games ( and movie). Twisted, dark and supernatural.

Corridors is a very promising start for The Axis of Perdition and it´s definitely worth checking out. A 3 star rating is well deserved.

To be honest I have a bit of a bone to pick wth Mr. Moore. In Dream Theater, his lustrous talent and sound was the perfect sound for Dream Theater, his lyrics were some of the best I have ever heard and also...he was a funny guy. But to this...

Being this is the opposite of Dream Theater (well in a way they are quite similar, but for this review I have decided to live in a world where there are no positives and negatives), it was hard for me to listen to this, and not compare it to Dream Theater, saying that Kevin is an ex member.

This is a great album, the songs are cathcy, the riffs kick ass, and you have Jim Mathoes on guitar (Fates Warning rule). This album does have quite an industrial feel to it, which I'm not the biggest fan off..but meh.

Mike Portnoy, who was kind enough to play on their first albums, has ran back to Dream Theater and wasn't able to appear, but what do you do when one of the best drummers in the world leaves....get one of the other best drummers in the world. Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree, King Crimson...he played with King Crimson, you have to be good to play in King Crimson) has filled in the slot (hehehehehe, I'm so childish)

If you haven't heard OSI before, they're basically No Man, but more upbeat and not suicidal. (Tim Bowness did provide vocals on one of the bonus tracks...but it's way too depressing.

1. The Escape Artist - Reminds me of Rammstein mixed with Leonard Cohen style vocals (Kevin Moore does have quite a boring voice). Kick ass way to start off an album. Cathcy and great electronics work.

2. Terminal - Very nice atmospheric trance intro that reminds me of No Quarter. A more laid back song with a Porcupine Tree vibe to it, and it's very catchy There is a longer version on the bonus disc, which surprisingly is better than the album version.

3. False Start - Very kick ass song. Cool break down section. Quite eccentric as well. If this song had a better vocalist, it would be a force to be reckoned with.

4. We Come Undone - Nice Massive Attack vibe to it. Quite interesting.

5. Radiologue - One of the best songs on the album. Electronics are used perfectly, very catchy and the acoustic guitar parts go well with the synth beats. Kevin's vocals are quite good too.

6. Be The Hero - Cool eerie intro. A bit tedious to be honest.

7. Microbust Alert - Eccentric.

8. Stockholm - Mikael Akerfeldt's lustrous tones do make this music seem better. This song is very reminiscent to something off of Beck's Sea Change.

9. Blood - There is a bit of an Enter Shikari vibe to this song. It's laidback and calm. Good way to end the album.

CONCLUSION: If this is your cup of tea, buy it. I'm not the biggest fan of Kevin's current direction, but it was very enjoyable.

The band has his roots in trash metal, so main sound is really metallic. Regular acoustic guitar intros make music warmer and more melodic as well as some almost folksy back vocals. In fact, all album's music is build on contrast combinations between acoustic melodic slow pieces and fast metallic trash. Not very original scheme, but the result is not so bad. I afraid main problem there is as often with post-metal bands: they repeat once found formula during all album's compositions. Music itself isn't strong enough to fill all other space, so even if being interested at very beginning, very soon listener become a bit boring because of very predictable compositions.

Nothing new or original, the album represents some very average post-metal music, what is not so band for the debut.

That is not a problem as such, it's a good source of inspiration and the Gathering feel very much at easy in this format. The problem is that the album follows the same pattern too much, there's too few surprises in store. The strongest songs sit at the start, so once you're through with them, the album drags towards its end. The instrumentation is very clever though, with lots of guitar and electronic effects as on Broken Glass.

Souvenirs is the first track with a dip, a weak melodic pop-break around minute 3 reveals an increasing difficulty to keep the songs interesting. From this point onwards the album continues going up and down between gripping moments (We Just Stopped Breathing, Golden Ground) and failed experiments like (Monsters, A Life All Mine). Jelena is a subtle closer but doesn't come up with a really compelling melody. The band has clearly lost some of its freshness and inspiration.

A bit too uneven for 4 stars, certainly compared to the batch of albums I have given 4 stars already. Still, worth exploring for people who are mainly attracted to the softer and more experimental side of the Gathering. 3.5 stars.

I was a Tool fan long before I became a prog nut, before even AENIMA hit the shelves. My band banged along to two-chord "Sober" for hours on end, and I learn a lot about jamming based simply on rhythm and your own muse. AENIMA was exactly what we young metalheads expected: a twisted, strange ball of angst with some of the most simultaneously literate and nasty lyrics in existence. Then the band was apparently gone (contract disputes) and one day I stumbled upon the first Perfect Circle album. I thought I'd found heaven. Textural goth metal, but without the minimalism (especially on guitar) that was my biggest beef with Tool. MER DE NOMS filled my eardrums over and over. So it was that when I heard that Tool was coming back with another album, I had extremely high expectations. I expected that Maynard's vocals would take a huge step forward due to the increased melodicism of APC, that we'd get more texture in the guitars, more fullness in the sound.

I heard the first single "Schism" played on the radio before I got the album. It was not what I expected. The riff was prototypical Tool but more intricate. Maynard's voice was no longer buried in the mix, but still within his Tool style. The lyrics displayed emotion and intelligence without simply being intentionally deviant. I was encouraged and I bought the album. I was almost entirely disappointed. The disc sat in my car CD player for a long time, but nothing on it grabbed me by the seat of my pants and threw me against the wall as AENIMA and MER DE NOMS had. Tool were no longer dangerous. Worse, they were starting to get boring. Though "Ticks and Leeches" drew on some of the anger that was the Maynard and Tool trademark, the band just didn't have the emotional impact without the depravity of "Stinkfist" or "Magdalena." Personally, after hearing Maynard sing against Billy Howerdel's guitar textures on APC, Adam Jones' playing (though better than previous albums) just seemed bland. I actually lost the album during a move, or maybe I sold it. I can't even remember. Some years later, 10,000 DAYS came out and I loved it. But that's another review.

When I discovered ProgArchives, I was shocked to find LATERALUS at #1 in the Post-Metal genre and ranked in the top 100 prog albums of all time. This made me think maybe I'd missed something, that I needed to give the album another chance. I borrowed my brother's copy (who knows, maybe it was actually mine) and after a few listens liked it quite a bit better than I had initially. At the same time, there was so much new music to explore that I really didn't immerse myself in the album until now.

LATERALUS, after multiple listens, is drummer Danny Carey's album. That is decidedly a good thing. He is the most talented player of his instrument in the band, and his interest in numerology and sacred geometry permeates the group's music. The progressiveness that Tool displays is almost all derived from the complex time signatures and polyrhythms Carey loves. Bassist Justin Chancellor has developed a genre-defining style to accompany this style, first seen on AENIMA but reaching its zenith on LATERALUS. Early in the 21st century, prowess as a bass player was often displayed by playing Chancellor's riffs, most frequently "Schism." While Tool has often been placed in the grunge camp, this rhythmic style (the entire basis for their sound) really has very little to do with grunge. The precision and complexity of the rhythm section is completely at odds with the garage ethos of the Seattle crew. The mathematical nature of this sound is at least half of the key to whether a listener likes Tool or not. If the strange counting of "Schism" makes your spine start to twist in a helical sway, you're likely a fan. If you find the repetitive figures boring, it's unlikely that Tool is going to be your band.

There is a middle ground, however, and I find it common among musicians. Most everyone agrees that Tool's rhythm section is superb, at minimum Carey. But it is with the founding leaders of the band that opinions begin to diverge. Maynard James Keenan is one of the pre-eminent frontmen in the last 20 years. When one thinks of a lead singer as a theatric performer rather than just a sound-maker, it is easy to understand Maynard and the band's popularity. His costumes, cagey demeanor, simultaneous inward and exhibitionist artistic style, are all classic characteristics of rock's greatest dating back to at least Jim Morrison. But like Morrison, Keenan's actual vocal abilities are limited. While he carries a tune without problem, he draws repeatedly on the same melodic ideas. Further, those ideas are often not that evocative. He is able to find interesting rhythmic places to sing above Carey's foundation, and his emotive capacity is good. But as a pure vocalist, he's simply limited. LATERALUS shows him more in the forefront without the annoying mix problems of the previous albums, but there are no great hooks here besides perhaps the "I know the pieces fit, cause I watched them fall away."

This brings me to guitarist Adam Jones. Perhaps no prominent metal band has had a less intersting guitarist than Jones. His role early in the band's career seemed limited to mild embellishments of the grooves set up by Carey and Chancellor. While most bands are criticized because the bass player simply follows the guitars, in Tool, it's the other way around. Jones does add sustained notes of various tonalities (wah, feedback, slide) that serve the function of pads (ambient sounds) but there are essentially no leads. To say it a little more clearly, his guitars serve no melodic or rhythmic purpose, and their harmonic role is only limited. To be fair, his role has improved with every album and I think it's actually best on 10,000 DAYS (probably why I like it most, being a guitarist.) On LATERALUS, he finally takes an independent role in some places, vastly improving from AENIMA. Again, the contrast between his minimalism and the experimental textures of Billy Howerdel (previously his guitar tech) of MER DE NOMS is like comparing a black and white sketch to a color painting. While black and white can be powerful in certain artistic situations, it limits the artist severely. In Jones and Tool's case, some color would have helped.

My favorite parts of LATERALUS are rhythmic: Carey's drum break in "Ticks and Leeches," the tribalistic toms of "Reflection," and the intertwining pieces of "Schism." The album is more complete and consistent by far than any of the previous albums. Unlike AENIMA, I can listen to it straight through and turn around and do it again. The members seem to be drawing on their own artistic creativity rather than shock value, which is certainly something to be admired. In addition, the band is pushing their personal ideals (regarding mathematical concepts) on this album more than any other. I appreciate the album much more after the additional listens I've given it for this review.

But there is still something a little cold about the album. Too much brain, not enough heart. An admirable effort and an important piece of metal history. 3-4 stars out of 5, rounded toward to the center.

Each individual track is an adventure. It starts with the stately pounding Rollercoaster, where the Gathering continues the sonic experimentations of the previous How To Measure A Planet, which was a crucial album in their development from melodic doom flavoured metal to something we will call trip-rock, a rocking marriage of trip-hop and space-rock. The dramatic tone and sophisticated arrangement of Rollercoaster is an exemplary achievement in that development.

Shot To Pieces picks up some speed and is one of the most rocking songs they ever did. It is followed by the tender Amity, one of the most beautiful songs in their catalogue. Anneke Van Giersbergen spins her stunning and sensual vocals around a Massive Attack trip-hop beat. There are some occasional vibes, a spacey guitar loop and a blanket of strings in the middle. It's all very minimal but deadly effective.

The Gathering has come a long way since their first album with Anneke Van Giersbergen. The band has converted themselves from a modest doom metal workout into a highly inventive team. Also Anneke's vocals have matured a lot, she uses her powerful chords only scarcely now, only to lay a dramatic accent within songs, such as halfway in Bad Movies Scene and Colorado Incident. Mostly she sings very dynamically, melodious and sensitive. The most spine-chilling moments come in the cleverly sequenced tracks Analog Park and Herbal Movement, both offering textured rock with a delightful balance of experimentalism and catchiness. Also the three last tracks count among their best work.

This album doesn't offer classic proggy features, so you shouldn't visit it on those terms. It's rock with sophisticated sonic experimentations, touching melodic melancholy and a genre challenging stance. Tempted?

Besides, who wouldn't want to hear Tori Amos fronting a space-trip version of Radiohead? Now what are you waiting for?

Something between math-rock and post-metal, but far from progressive. Whenever repetitive musical pieces are part of the genre, just to make music listenable and not too boring, musicians must have some composition or musicianship abilities. Pity, but it is not a case with this album.

Simpler than average musical technique in combination with very few melodies doesn't work at all. At the end of the listening I was bored to death. Not everyone can survive monotonous repetitive sounds with regular changing of rhythm/sound level. Almost 50 minutes of music, but in fact it would be difficult to record even good single from that music material.

Avoid at any conditions.

Main music components there are symphonic, neo-classic ( more immitation, than real one), post rock, electronics and operatic vocals. So, everyone can find something he /she likes? Sound is good, but very safe, polished, even commercial.

Possibly, bigger problem there is that all music is mostly based on melodic, almost cheesy pop-rock. So, even when interesting pieces are included in song, this pop-sweet basis just destroys possible great result. Many acoustic instruments/ strings are filling the space quite pleasantly. But again, I really more like some very separate pieces (plenty of them), but not the song (and album's music) in whole.

The album is long, but isn't boring. To be honest, I am not sure about classification of this music: band connection with any form of metal is very limited. However , in some moments you can hear Nightwish echoes.

Interesting, but more as experimental work, than as final musical product. Somewhere around 2,5.

'Requiem Fortissimo' may well be one of those albums that could be perceived as a total masterpiece by one with an ear attuned enough to doom metal to appreciate it. While I have dabbled in the realm of doom before (from the likes of early Anathema and Katatonia to Shades Of Despair and Draconian) I've been able to see real beauty in some of the music the genre spits out, but above anything, its a real hit-or-miss deal. If something doesn't work, it really won't work. 'Requiem' definately had alot of thought put into it, but in the end; a few shortcomings in the work truly mar what might have been a landmark doom record.

When I speak of the 'thought' and effort put into the making of it, its important to know that the band went as far as to enlist the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (generally perceived to be Austrailia's flagship philharmonic) and choral sections to add to the sound. While this does certainly make 'Requiem' a much more worthy venture than other albums I've listened to, the rest of the mix hurts the orchestration alot. The guitar riffs are generally unimaginative save for a few precious arrangements, and the growl vocals are truly atrocious. While there are a few soprano operatic sections, and parts where the orchestra has room to breathe, these sections frankly aren't worth going through all of the monotonous guitar drone and grunting to get to them.

While it might be a suitable backdrop for a wintery, frostbitten evening, this depressing and dissapointing opus from Virgin Black will not appeal to many outside of the doom metal circle. I for one, can find stuff to appreciate here, and it's certainly not the worst album I've ever heard, but I would much rather delve into a more fulfilling record then this; as there are plenty out there that trump over this one.