Imagine if the most popular metal band in the most populous country in the world decided to throw most of its trademarks overboard and delivered a surprisingly modern, technical, and highly experimental record somewhere between aggressive and socially critical Dream Theater-styled progressive metal, prog rock tendencies à la Pink Floyd, and odd sound collages harkening to Amon Düül or Tangerine Dream. Cool story, bro! Well, this story is a fact. Welcome to the new world of Tang Dynasty, which has finally released its fourth album in twenty-five years.

When I first listened to the surprisingly aggressive title song “Thorn”, with its bumblebee bass guitar parts, cold and technical riffs, weird breakdowns, unusually low and chaotically overlapping vocal tracks, and nerve-firing guitar solos supported by a weird video criticizing the horrors of the Iraq War and other contemporary conflicts, I didn’t believe my ears (In fact, I was sure that it was a weird prank or a mislabeled video). This song didn’t have anything to do with Tang Dynasty’s epic folk metal hymns, or much of anything at all to do with prior albums. With an open-minded attitude, a lot of patience, and multiple spins, I really started to find a connection to the chaotic, uneasy, and unorthodox opener. Today, it’s a song I often listen to and which I find fascinating. When I finally listened to the entire album, I was puzzled to realize that this song is among those that are easier to digest on this courageous record, wherein the four musicians are radically trying out new things.

The most stunning passages of the record can be found in its middle. “Water Lilies” is a chaotic, overlong, and unpredictable instrumental track with strange atmospheric breaks and an uneasy atmosphere that drags on for more than eight minutes. “Elephants Do Not Complain” is as strange as its title might suggest. The limited main riff reminds me of Survivor’s “Eye Of The Tiger”, while the unexpected floating, puzzling, and slow middle part recalls elements from the band’s own classic “The Sun”. This track is completely unpredictable and inaccessible from its menacing beginning to the aborted ending. What then follows is another bizarre move as the band comes around with a weird acoustic folk song called “Plum Gift”, which feels like an uneasy breakdown during a drug trip on opium. Despite its calmer tones, the melodic clean vocals, and the dominating flute sounds, the track doesn’t feel calming at all, but rather disturbing and even scary to me. It’s hard to explain, but this atmospheric piece of music must be among the strangest things I have ever heard in my life, and I can’t even tell you if that’s rather positive or rather negative. The quartet of oddness is completed by a weird collection of city-versus-nature sound collages mixed with a few acoustic guitar tones that drag on for over five minutes. The whole thing is entitled “Purple Leaf”. This kind of song would fit on the most dystopian of records by King Crimson or Voivod. The track is pure uneasiness, but it’s oddly brilliant in its radical execution.

Apart from one or two exceptions, (like the almost conciliatory album closer), this perfectly entitled record is a radical change for Tang Dynasty, and tries out many new elements in a way that I find very admirable. The album includes the band’s most aggressive song, as well as their calmest track ever; it includes their shortest and their longest instrumental songs; it includes completely folk-driven and unusual instrumentals as well as modern and technical metal; and it includes some very melodic passages balanced with chaotic, low, and noisy vocals and instrumental parts. The record is filled with an overdose of strange ideas and pitiless experiments, but lacks catchy hooks or truly magic moments. A lot of veteran fans will feel irritated about this record, while a select few might hail the band’s progression. I guess that most people might just feel as confused as I am right now. In a weird way, I think that I ultimately like this record. This very unique piece of art is a grower, and I know that it will take some patience and time until this album will ultimately unfold for me.

This is definitely the weirdest record I have heard for quite a while. I would call it by far the strangest and probably the most interesting record of the year 2013. I hate to say this because it sounds slightly arrogant, but this album truly is for very open-minded people only. If you don’t know Tang Dynasty yet, you have really missed out on something special, but you shouldn’t start with this album to get to know them at all. Discover them chronologically and you might understand my mixed feelings about Thorn.

Xandria is a symphonic metal band from Bielefeld, situated in my home province North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. The band has managed to survive and stand out among so many similar genre bands that have popped up at the end of the nineties when genre leaders as Nightwish had their breakthrough. Xandria is mostly known for catchy songs such as “Ravenheart”, “The Lioness” and “Sisters Of The Night” but they lately went into a darker and more epic direction. The band has survived many important line-up changes and some of them occurred very recently. Bassist Nils Middelhauve left the band after eight years and was replaced by Fabio D’Amore for a few live shows before Steven Wussow was hired as permanent replacement. The band also has a new singer, the Dutch Dianne van Giersbergen of Ex Libris fame. She is already the fifth female singer for the band. The only original member remaining in the band is guitarist, keyboarder and occasional back vocalist Marco Heubaum. I had seen this band live in early 2008 when they supported “Salomé – The Seventh Veil” and during a festival in the summer of 2012 with a quite different line-up after the release of the critically acclaimed comeback release “Neverworld’s End”. I preferred the older line-up and when I heard that the band went through several line-up changes again, I was curious to hear what the band’s sixth studio album “Sacrificium” would sound like.

In my opinion, this is by far the band’s greatest record. It's even one of the best genre albums ever done. This is a difficult thing to say a few days after the record's initial release but I swear that this album left a very deep impression and blew me away like no other genre record in the past years. Xandria sounds more ambitious, epic and symphonic than ever. The sound is also a lot fresher and heavier than expected. The opening title track “Sacrificium” already breaks the ten-minute mark and comes around with a dark spoken word introduction, bombastic choirs, dramatic string passages, powerful riffs and tons of promising ideas. It’s courageous to open an album with such a song and even though this track indeed needs a few spins to open up, I would say that it was worth the risk to put this song right at the start as it brilliantly represents everything Xandria is about in 2014. Gone are the childish melodies with simplistic lyrics, the short and catchy potential hit singles and the gothic pop ballads for anime nerds or emo teenies. Say hello to ambitious and versatile song writing in the key of Nightwish, complex symphonic arrangements on one level with the brilliant Edenbridge and an overall heavier sound than ever that could be compared to the latest Epica. This is how symphonic metal should sound like, Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation who were this year’s disappointments should immediately take notes.

Let me point out a few more highlights apart of the brilliant title track on the record. This is not an easy task because there is no bad track on this album as they all vary between very good and excellent. “The Undiscovered Land” starts like a world music inspired ballad but becomes an epic soundtrack-like masterpiece with an elegant and powerful vocal performance, tear-jerking folk melodies and gripping guitar riffs. If you liked the last two Nightwish records a little bit, you are going to adore this song. The last time a symphonic metal song impressed me that much at first sight was seven years ago when I heard Nightwish’s “The Poet And The Pendulum”.

What could a band put up next after such a sophisticated mid-tempo soundtrack? Xandria give you the right answer with “Betrayer”. The song sounds a little bit faster and it is almost thrash metal orientated. On one side, it features emotionally gripping riffs and beautiful guitar solos, but on the other it also includes bombastic symphonic arrangements that develop an almost apocalyptic atmosphere. After the light and enchanting “The Undiscovered Land”, the almost destructive “Betrayer” sounds like its dark and wicked counterpart. There is nothing left to criticize, both songs perfectly complement each other and are equally amazing.

Xandria go on to prove that one can mix the gracious melodies of “The Undiscovered Land” with the dark energy of “Betrayer” and a few catchy hooks. This track is called “Until The End” and completes the trio of epic majesty.

“Little Red Relish” is maybe the catchiest track on the album thanks to a truly powerful chorus. In comparison to the past, this doesn’t keep the band from adding brutal and speedy guitar riffs and orgasmic orchestral arrangements to this more accessible song. This is another track that works perfectly and represents the new sound of Xandria very well.

“Temple Of Hate” impresses with its excellent guitar work. The twin guitar parts and emotional solos in the middle part sound like the legendary Iron Maiden. The use of the violin makes me think of Irish folklore and bands like Elvenking might go green with envy when they listen to these perfect arrangements. The vocals in this song are even greater than usual as they reach out for nearly angelic heights without losing their grounding power.

Just when I thought that I heard the best vocal performance on the entire album, I am proven wrong with the very last song. Even though I’m not a big fan of piano ballads, the closing lullaby “Sweet Atonement” is performed with vocals full of soul and passion that might break the fiercest metal hearts. I’m having massive goose bumps while I’m listening to this closer.

And no, it’s not over yet! The special edition of this record includes instrumental versions of all regular twelve songs plus a bonus track entitled “The Watcher”. Guess what, this bonus track features once again atmospheric and epic orchestral arrangements, powerful vocals and one of the catchiest choruses among all new songs. Other symphonic metal bands fail to write one song like this in their entire careers and it’s only the bonus track of Xandria’s new record. This song alone is worth the extra money for the special edition even though I don’t care for the instrumental versions. “The Watcher” would have been a perfect choice for a single along with “Little Red Relish”. If the band reads these lines, they know which songs to pick if they want to release a new single or EP anytime soon.

In conclusion, this is one of the very best female fronted symphonic metal albums ever done. In my opinion Xandria’s “Sacrificium” is also a solid candidate for the top spots of this year’s best album rankings. I’m deeply impressed and surprised by this ferocious rebirth of the band. The overused image of a phoenix rising from its ashes on the album cover never fit better than here. Anybody who cares the slightest for the symphonic metal genre should purchase this album.

When I started to listen to metal music, I was mostly into folk and power metal and that’s how I came across Elvenking. My tastes evolved since then but so did Elvenking’s music. Yes, I liked the enchanting and epic debut “Heathenreel”, the more progressive follow-up with new singer Kleid “Wyrd”, the upbeat power folk record “The Winter Wake” that marked Damna’s return and also the darker and more modern conceptual release “The Scythe”. The acoustic release “Two Tragedy Poets (…and a Caravan of Weird Figures)” wasn’t really my cup of tea but still a welcome experiment. The last two albums “Red Silent Tides” and “Era” were quite good but sounded a little bit too alike after all. It was gripping power metal with folk influences crowned by catchy hooks and a few small experiments here and there. I liked these albums but I felt that a change was needed for the band’s next record to continue to evolve and give some new inspiration to the band.

Sadly, “The Pagan Manifesto” offers nothing new to the Elvenking universe despite some darker outfits and the promising album title and promo videos. The new record is once again power metal with folk influences focused on catchy hooks. This mixture has become a trademark of the band but it doesn’t sound inspiring anymore. I do like the acoustic folk pearl “Towards the Shores”, the speedy feel good track “Pagan Revolution”, the darker parts and the gripping growls in the classic beauty meets the beast approach of “Grandier’s Funeral Pyre” or the extremely catchy hooks in “Black Roses for the Wicked One” that would make an excellent single. The problem is that these songs are nice but nothing more. I’ve been saturated with this kind of music and it simply doesn’t touch me anymore. Elvenking really starts to repeat itself.

The other songs on the record basically sound like a mixture of the four aforementioned tracks in more or less convincing ways. “King Of The Elves” starts very badly with stupid male choirs and unnecessarily speedy riffs that don’t harmonize with each other at all. After a few minutes, my worst fears are becoming reality. This song desperately tries to be ambitious and epic but it’s just fails. This piece of music is overlong and pointless. The song is a disappointment. Amanda Somerville’s guest vocals are also rather annoying as she has been present in too many projects lately. This particular song indeed sounds like an attempt to sound a little bit like Avantasia. It’s probably the worst song on the album and the band didn’t do well to open its record with this track.

The other epic in form of the closer “Witches Gather” has at least some more atmosphere and the song writing feels more coherent but the track is still too long and good average at best.

“Elvenlegions” and “Moonbeam Stone Circle” (the song titles are also getting more and more exchangeable) try to be the new band hymns but they sound too calculated on one side and aren’t constantly catchy enough on the other. They are not utterly bad songs but exchangeable Elvenking standard tracks. At some points, Damna’s vocals in “Elvenlegions” are not only slightly nasal and whiny but also androgynous. At the end of this track’s bridge, I really believed for a few seconds that Amanda Somerville was singing again but that’s not the case. I always defended Damna’s unique vocals but his vocal performance is rather getting worse than improving over the years in my opinion. Recent live footage seems to prove me right but I wished I was wrong.

The album goes on this way. It all sounds like a routine job with less passion and ideas than on the last records. Most of the songs are not offensive or bad. It’s maybe even worse because they are dull, unimpressive and have noticeable lengths. I really prefer a controversial record like “The Scythe” to such an exchangeable release like “The Pagan Manifesto”. In my opinion, it’s the band’s weakest album to date and my rating is still quite generous. This record is only for fans that want Elvenking to sound the same and like classic Elvenking all the time.

Edguy was one of those bands that introduced me to metal music one decade ago and I consider myself a big fan of the band who has purchased not only all their regular studio albums but also all live records and numerous EPs. I must though admit that I didn’t like the last two studio records that sounded more like a mixture of old fashioned radio hard rock tracks and exchangeable Avantasia leftovers. Avantasia seemed to become Tobias Sammet’s main concern and Edguy really suffered from this. I was hoping that he would take a creative break and put the Avantasia project aside but Tobias Sammet simply can’t stop writing, recording and releasing music. To my surprise, both Avantasia and Edguy are back from the edge and released two convincing records with “The Mystery Of Time” for the former and “Space Police – Defenders Of The Crown” for the latter. Edguy’s new record goes back to the style of “Rocket Ride” and is pretty much as good as that album or even slightly better.

The band did a wise decision to open the record with “Sabre & Torch” and to present this song as first track from the record instead of a half-hearted ballad, a seventies’ hard rock track or a weird song with even weirder humour. “Sabre & Torch” conquered me by storm and it’s my favourite song from the new album. It’s Edguy’s best song since the epic “Sacrifice” eight years earlier. The song features sharp and speedy riffs, a few cool keyboard passages and aggressive high pitched vocals crowned by a simplistic but effective chorus that will conquer the masses by storm. If Edguy come back to North America anytime soon, I already know that I will go absolutely insane to this song in concert. This track reunites everything that represents a great European power metal song for me. Okay, the vocals sound a little bit forced at some point but that’s the only negative thing to say about this killer anthem. This is a precious candidate for my favourite song of the year. Why couldn’t they release an entire record with songs like this one?

The rest of the record is obviously not as great as the opener but it’s still quite good. “Space Police” is a lot slower and more melodic, the lyrics, the humorous bridge and the funny sound effects are a little bit goofy but the chorus is incredibly catchy and the diversified track can be called a true fun anthem. “Defenders Of The Crown” goes back to the power metal style of the past. Tobias Sammet does a diversified vocal performance on here and the simplistic but epic chorus will surely find its place in the set lists for the future live concerts. It’s a true pleasure to hear Edguy go back to its roots even though this song sounds a little bit too much like HammerFall. The following single “Love Tyger” is a funny glam rock track. I’m not a big fan of that genre but as a little change, this track works very well and sounds quite fresh. “The Realms Of Baba Yaga” is a cool mixture of hard rock and power metal and takes the better elements from both genres to fusion them to a powerful epic of six minutes.

Then comes a song that is quite hard to judge for me. It kicks off the second half of the record that isn’t as good as the first one in my opinion but still okay. Edguy offer us a cover version. The original song is extremely well known and was originally performed by legendary Austrian singer Falco who mixed pop and rock elements with his unique rap passages. How would Sammet manage to perform the original rap flow with strong Austrian accent and German lyrics? It’s in fact the first time Edguy performs a song in German since the very cool demo song “Das Reh”. I must admit that I didn’t quite like this cover song at first because it is too close to the original to stand out and the vocal parts are not very well mixed and hard to understand. The more I listen to the song, I realize that Edguy simply had tons of fun while recording this track and even though this song is far from perfection, the band’s good humour is somehow contagious. In the end, I don’t adore this song but I don’t hate it either. It’s in fact better than what I expected which is a good sign.

“Do Me Like A Caveman” took me a little bit by surprise. I was expecting a humorous hard rock track with nasty lyrics but the final result sounds a little bit like a HIM track with higher vocals. Once again, it’s not as bad as I expected when I first saw the title. It’s not a strong track but it works well as a cheesy and more commercial track in the album context. “Shadow Eaters” is another vivid power metal driven track with great melancholic vocals. It’s not a standout song but the most promising grower on the album. “Alone In Myself” is the predictable ballad that Edguy needs to include on each record. To my surprise, the ballad has a certain atmosphere with a strong eighties rock feeling, decent organ sounds and enchanting vocals and is much better than the last few songs of that kind offered by the band. It’s still one of the weaker tracks on this album and reminds me of Bon Jovi but once again, it sounds much better than I expected. The closing nine-minute epic “The Eternal Wayfarer” sounds like a mixture of Avantasia’s “Sign Of The Cross” and Edguy’s “The Piper Never Dies” with a few oriental sound samples. No, this is not original at all. As I enjoy both songs I also enjoy this track even though it’s maybe a few minutes too long for its own good. It’s a good closer of an overall very good album.

Let me tell you that the limited version is really not worth your attention or money. “England” is a boring piano ballad with pseudo-funny lyrics. “Aychim In Hysteria” sounds like The Police meets Wham!. This is definitely not my cup of tea. The alternative versions and instrumental tracks are completely useless as well. It’s even hard to convince a collector like me to purchase this edition. At least, the cover artwork is not that much of an abomination as the original one and we get to see a few more photos. I know these are rather weak reasons but I’m trying to convince myself right now.

In the end, “Space Police – Defenders Of The Crown” is a welcome return to form for Edguy. The new record doesn’t really surprise us or introduces us to something new but it goes back to the strengths that made Edguy so popular with records such as “Hellfire Club” and “Rocket Ride”. Edguy neither sounds like an Avantasia side project nor like an old-fashioned hard rock band anymore. This is a power metal record with a couple of truly amazing songs. Above all, “Sabre & Torch” is the best Edguy track in eight years and the album offers more amazing tracks like “Defenders Of The Crown” or “Shadow Eaters”. Even the weaker tracks on here like “Do Me Like A Caveman” or “Alone In Myself” still sound rather good to me. I’m really glad Edguy are back.

"Fear X" (2003) is a quite weird psycho-thriller by the highly experimental Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn who is known for other controversial art house films like "Valhalla Rising" (2009) and "Only God Forgives" (2013). "Fear X" feels like an unfinished movie that seems to offer a lot of food for thought at first contact but only leads to two possible conclusions after the almost abrupt ending. Many viewers will be disappointed by the lack of a proper conclusion while others may find exactly this aspect very creative. In my opinion, the movie lacks the detailed descriptions and out-thought storytelling qualities of comparable art house directors like David Lynch. If you are not into slow paced art house movies, you are going to waste your time. If you are honestly interested in this genre, there are other classics like "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), "Lost Highway" (1997), "Audition" (1999), "In the Mood for Love" (2000) and "Memento" (2001) you should have watched and appreciated before you venture into the more liberal territory of "Fear X".

As for the story, I invite you to discover it by yourself and don't want to give any more details than these: A depressed security guard can't forget about the murder of his wife that happened at his workplace some time ago when the young woman was gunned down along with a police officer by an unknown in the parking lot of a shopping mall. The desperate man is still looking for any possible detail to reconstruct the mysterious murder in order to understand why his wife had to die. A mysteriously discovered photograph leads him to a place where his wife and him had been on vacation several months earlier and his arrival will create a lot of nervous tension in town.

As a fan of the art house genre, there are several things I appreciated and disliked about this movie. The first negative aspect is that the movie has a complete absence of crime scenes. The movie would have kicked off in a much more dynamical way if the director had shown us the initial crime that is later shown on blurry surveillance camera footage only. An even bigger problem is the lack of details in the plot that could have delivered some food for thought. Apart of the two main characters, all other appearances remain peripheral even though some of them actually had some potential. Many little scenes don't add anything to the plot at all. These scenes aren't there to confuse us either or to tell us more about the characters, I feel like them being really unnecessary. As I said before, there are two ways to analyze this movie in the end but I don't want to spoil this film for you as you need to experience it on your own to make up your own mind about it. One of these two options would induct a couple of massive plot holes though which would make this film appear quite amateurish.

The movie also has its strong points though. The movie doesn't feature too many dialogues and the actors have to work a lot with their facial expressions. This approach is experimental and intriguing and the actors and actresses actually do a very convincing job. The movie's strongest point is its bleak and slightly surreal atmosphere. This point is supported by a minimalist soundtrack by Brian Eno, a clever choice of settings including many dark rooms and the use of the colour red in many scenes and the slow paced acting and storytelling. Even though nothing really happened in some scenes, the movie got me on the edge of my seat like an atmospheric horror movie. Some surreal elements of the film also added a nice psychological suspense that turned somehow out to be the main guiding line of this film.

In the end, this movie pretty much offers as many positive as negative points. I liked to experience this movie once but I guess I wouldn't watch it again or recommend it to many people. I felt that this movie had a lot of potential and especially the first two thirds of the film very actually intriguing but the last third and the hollow ending were a negative surprise in my opinion. This movie is for patient art house cinephiles and fans of the controversially discussed director only.