Band: GrimSkunk
Song: Falling Into Shadow
Album: Set Fire!
Location: Sala Rossa, Montréal, 24th of May 2012

Hello dear readers and visitors of my blog!

During summer time, I've been able to completely upload my blog with anything interesting I've done in the past years such as my old German newspaper articles I've already talked about before.

I would like to talk a little bit further about the reviews I've written for the Metal Archives. I am into metal music since 2003 or 2004 when I discovered German Medieval Rock bands such as In Extremo and later on Saltatio Mortis or Subway To Sally. A couple of years later, I bought some magazines in Germany to know more about the scene and stumbled over classic metal bands such as Iron Maiden. From then on, I discovered more and more bands and I especially appreciated European Power Metal around bands such as Amorphis, Edguy, Elvenking, Gamma Ray, HammerFall, Helloween, Saidian and so on when I was young. When I moved to Canada, I fell in love with more complex and progressive music from of that country by discovering avant-garde bands such as UneXpect or Voivod. I decided to join the Metal Archives to discover more music and make people discover what I like. I wrote my first reviews back in October 2010 and since then I have discovered many amazing bands from many intriguing countries. Until today in August 2012, I have written a total of 433 reviews which is quite a lot and I still continue discovering new styles. It was quite a lot of work to put all these reviews on my blog. I decided to include new comments, the cover artworks and as often as possible a song sample to give you an idea of the music. Of course, all rights are reserved by the artists and their labels and if there is any complaint, I will immediately take off the photos or samples. My only interest in updating this archive is to make people discover impressive music. I must admit that it's exciting to take a nostalgic look back at what I've listened to during the last two years. It's great to see that I've kept moving on to experience new horizons.

There are of course reviews of bands any fan should know and that can be considered as pioneers such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal or the American True Metal posers from Manowar or the Thrash Metal legends of Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica that are featured in some reviews.

But I also discovered a lot of underground bands from Québec and other countries which I have tried to support with my reviews. Let's cite a couple of intriguing bands from Québec such as the experimental Hardcore and Sludge band Les Ékorchés, the atmospheric Black Metal artists from Nocturnal Excision, the experimentally diversified Black Metal act Putamen Insula, the local Hard Rock heroes of Ryder, the more Death and Thrash Metal orientated local heroes of Seventh Section or the folk and nature influenced Black Metal act Triskèle. I started to get interested in genres I've thought I would never listen to a few years ago such as Melodic Death Metal or Symphonic Black Metal.

After a while, I wanted to know how metal music sounds in other and more exotic countries. I started with Japanese bands such as the very artistic X Japan, the technically stunning Heavy and Thrash Metal band Loudness (ラウドネス), the highly diversified The Gathering Of Yin And Yang (陰陽座) or the very open minded The Human Chair (人間椅子) that should please to any fan of music. I also fell in love with many Chinese metal bands, for example the famous Eastern Heavy Metal pioneers of Tang Dynasty (唐朝), the diversified Progressive Metal band The Last Successor (末裔) or the epic Melodic Black Metal groups Screaming Savior (惊叫基督) and Terminal Lost (天幕落) to only name a few. I even discovered completely exotic gems, for example the amazing and chilling Progressive Metal band Pantommind from Bulgaria, the traditional Heavy Metal band Threatening that comes from Uganda, the great Gothic Metal queen of Columbia called Nataly Kruger, the avant-garde Metal beginners Clair De Lune from El Salvador or the more commercial and ballad orientated bands such as Bức Tường from Vietnam as well as Artcell from Bangladesh. I even discovered bands from Iraq (Seeds Of Iblis), Nepal (Dead Mariners) and Taiwan (六翼天使, also known as Seraphim). By discovering all those bands, I really opened my mind for new artistic inspirations and I got more and more into foreign cultures. In times of globalization, arts get more and more diversified and I'm very glad to see that every band has developed its very unique definition of metal music.

As a summary, I have put all of these interesting reviews in ten different categories on this site. I hope you enjoy my reviews and maybe we can exchange on different discoveries, experiences or opinions. I think that most of what I've wanted to say is said after so many reviews. I will maybe complete the number of 500 reviews on the Metal Archives and put the new ones on my blog but I think it's time to move on. I will though continue writing for another Metal webzine called The Metal Observer from time to time and maybe a second and quite different site in the future. I'm open for new experiences and I think I may live quite some changes in the next years. I'm excited to see what's next.

Right now, I'm going to put some new concert footage on my blog from concerts and festivals (not necessarily metal stuff but rather bands from the Gothic scene) where I have been to this summer. There's always something new on my blog, so be sure to check it out and spread the name!

Thanks for your attention!

Sebastian

PS: Check also out the bands I have added to the Metal Archives:

- Drakarium (Viking Metal) from Jonquière, Canada

- Salmonhell (Metalcore) from Alma, Canada

- XspendX (Hard Rock) from Chicoutimi, Canada

- Attonitus (Medieval Rock) from Flensburg, Germany

- Bushfire (Stoner Rock) from Darmstadt, Germany

- TrollWar (Folk Metal) from Alma, Canada

- Inner Control (Progressive Thrash Metal) from Jonquière, Canada

- Unbeing (Instrumental Progressive Metal) from Montréal, Canada

- Harmahis (Ambient) from Moscow and Novovoronezh, Russia 

More bands (right now, I've tried to add three bands from Beijing, Chengdu and Hefei in China) should follow soon but are still in the band queue and wait for approval by the moderators. If there's something new, I'll let you know.

Artcell is a rather unkown progressive metal band from Bangladesh that has been around for far over one decade by now. Even though they might never get an international breakthrough, the band mostly skips annoying solo passages and concentrates on diversified vocal performances with many catchy moments and commercial attempts. The lyrics are entirely performed in Bengali but this happens to be a very harmonic and colourful language that fits well to the mostly soft and enchanting melodies. The band has some very gifted guitar players in their line-up but their talents always serve the vocals and lyrics and become rarely overwhelming which is a positive fact for the fluidity.

There are some harder tracks and a couple of influences coming from famous Western bands. The atmospheric "Krittim Manush" almost sounds like a Bengali version of Metallica's classic "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" while the closing "Olosh Shomoyer Pare" can be compared to an old enchanting Dream Theater ballad like "The Silent Man" for example. Overall, the band still lacks a little bit of a coherent songwriting and the record is maybe a little bit too mainstream orientated and calm at some moments. Metal maniacs might get bored from time to time, but a couple of ballads are really worth to be lsitened to and the band happens to be very gifted in writing this kind of music.

Let's cite "Itihash (Shomoy/Addrishto)" as the most outstanding track among the calmer stuff because of its high pitched and overall variable but coherently chilling vocals that give this track a slight pop feeling. The whole thing is though played with technical diversity and especially the acoustic guitars play beautiful melodies filled with passion. After three minutes, the track gets a surprising break and turns towards harder groove metal passages until a well done finish.

Not as outstanding but overall even better is the great "Obosh Anubhutir Deyal" where dark and light clean vocals perfectly fusion and work together. They fit perfectly to the magic arrangements like the slight New Age moments with some shy folk influences, decent string passages and a great acoustic guitar work.

There are though maybe a couple too many ballads on this release even though each one of them uses a couple of creative ideas. "Rupok (Ekti Gan)" kicks off very enchanting but the track finally lacks of progression and is too long in my humble opinion with a running time of eight minutes and a half. This kind of lengths can be observed throughout the release and the band would have created a more fluid listening experience if they would have cut off two or three minutes in the longest tracks.

Another flaw comes with the production that is overall acceptable but could be more precise as we talk about quite progressive music. Sometimes, one misses a couple of interesting background melodies that only get accessible after several tries and at other moments, there are too many instruments playing at the same time and level to clearly distinguish them. On the other side, we talk about a quite exotic gem coming from a country where metal music is overall not very popular and where the musicians won't make their lives with their artistic outputs and can't invest so much money in this kind of details. It's already a surprise that these guys are still around after all these years and the release of two full lengths records should be seen as a victory for the multicultural metal movement.

These guys are definitely very talented and especially the diversified guitar parts and the great vocals stand out and make the whole thing very addictable. This release is very light-hearted without being superficial and that's what makes its magic. Especially the numerous ballads are amazing and must not hide behind their Western idols. This record definitely grows once one gets used to the exotic lyrics, the mediocre production and the calm approach of the genre.

In their homeland, these guys are considered as local legends by some and the people are right because this band is very gifted, has been around for quite a while and is the most interesting metal band I've heard of from this place to date. If you want to know more about the metal scene of Bengladesh, you should also try to check out the work of the pioneer bands such as the sometimes more hard rock orientated Warfaze and the probably first real metal band of the country which is RockStrata but the heavy to progressive sounds of Cryptic Fate or the more psychedelic vein of In Dhaka might also sound interesting but are harder to find than this release from Artcell and I have only heard a few excerpts until now.

If you're intrigued by calm progressive metal with a slight exotic touch you should definitely give this album some spins. My appetite has now grown for more and I will try to follow the path of this band and discover more metal music from this big but mysterious country.

"7th Grade Civil Servant" is a quite entertaining action comedy movie with some curious spy flick passages and a romantic love story. A female agent loses her boyfriend because she can't tell him the truth about her real job as a special agent. Three years after, the two heartbroken and unique characters meet again. The boyfriend still doesn't know anything about his big love's career and has become a special agent for a different section of the state. His girlfriend realizes quickly that he is now also lying to her but she's emotionally furious and blind for the truth. In a case involving the transfer of a deadly virus from a scientist to a gang of Russian criminals, they have to figth against each other and sometimes work together without knowing it which leads to many hilarious sequences until the final revelations.

By only reading my introduction, you can easily see what this film is worth. The movie's two biggest flaws are that the story is nothing really new at all and heavily predictable at some points and that many comedy moments get a little bit too repetitive and silly from time to time.

On the positive side, we have two convincing main actors with the beautiful, hyperactive and tough Ahn Soo-Ji that is incarnated by Kim Ha-Neul and a clumsy, courageous and naive Lee Jae-joon that is performed by Kang Ji-Hwan. They have a good chemistry and perform very well together, both in the harsh and the romantic parts. The supporting actors are also very funny and only the main villains remain a little bit faceless.

The slapstick moments in this movie are rather comparable to the Japanese and Hongkong cinema of the eighties and nineties and fail to have the same unique brand of brilliance as recent South Korean flicks as "Save The Green Planet!" for example. Sometimes you rather feel as if you were in a Jackie Chan flick. If you like this kind of more accessible Asian humour, you will really feel at home with this flick but I think that there's a little bit too much comedy in it against its own good. The movie could be more unique and lacks of something really outstanding.

It's though a very entertaining, light-hearted and sympathetic flick that is worth a watch but in the end nothing more than a good average flick with solid comedy moments and average action scenes that are saved by a very good acting.

As a big fan of the current South Korean cinema who has seen the amazing vengeance thriller "I Saw The Devil", I was excited to watch an earlier collaboration of director Kim Jee-Woon and actor Lee Byung-Hun in this movie that got internationally known as "A Bittersweet Life". This movie is definitely completely different from the recent masterpiece they have created together and also from "The Good, The Bad, The Weird". This movie is rather influenced by Japanese Yakuza flicks and portrays an enforcer and manager that has faithfully served his brutal boss for seven long years. This man is suddenly led by his emotions when he gets the task to keep an eye on his boss' new young girlfriend during his absence. The loyal man falls for the charming, naive and vivid young woman and doesn't contact his boss when he discovers that his boss' doubts were right and that his new girlfriend was cheating on him and meeting another guy with whom she wants to leave the city. When the boss comes back home, he soon discovers that something is wrong and gets to the conclusion that his faithful right arm betrayed him. He wants to punish him but the manager gets away with his life and takes revenge.

What seems intriguing as a story line at first sight turns out to be quite redundant. First of all, there is no chemistry at all between the manager and his boss' girlfriend and it's hard to believe that he risks everything he has done and become for a beautiful doll and her imprudent boyfriend.

Second, there is a second story line that centres around a conflict between the main actor and a mafia gang that spreads some trouble in his hotel that soon gets quite personal. This side story is also about betrayal and loyalty and is quite interesting but the two stories feel somewhat unfinished and simply don't glue together. It is as if you were watching two different movies from time to time and this doesn't help the film to improve.

Third, the middle part of the story is way too long without explaining the important details. For example, we never really get to know what finally happens to the boss' unfaithful girlfriend or her young lover.

Fourth, there are too many pseudo-philosophical dialogues that create many lengths and from time to time, we even get some completely misplaced slapstick humour. For example, the whole story line around the weapon deal with the Russian mafia is just silly.

Fifth, the vengeance chapter only takes a few minutes and doesn't impress with much action, gripping tension or some brutality. Instead, emotionally driven dialogues are put in between fighting sequences and slow the flow. The main character suddenly gets quite tender in between all the shooting scenes which feels unreal and weird.

Each time, you expect something gripping to happen, it just doesn't. There are some appetizers and promising turnings now and then but the rhythm always quickly slows down. The movie has many ups and downs and is ultimately too long and a little bit hard to sit through. Something really gripping, surprising or twisted as in a Takashi Miike movie is definitely missing here. The acting is only of an average quality and the story more or less predictable. Only a couple of vivid passages and the good job of some supporting actors made this flick at least watchable and enjoyable from time to time but I have really expected more. In the end, I wouldn't recommend to watch this kind of overlong and emotionally shattered mafia thriller.