Ladies and gentlemen!

There is a quite controversial hype surrounding Mastery's debut release "Valis" these days. It's definitely one of the most unusual records ever done. Some think it's some sort of radical progressive innovation made by a genre-breaking new genius. Others claim that these forty minutes are just a pretentious atrocity recorded by a dangerous nihilist. The answer lies maybe somewhere in between and this kind of music is probably best analyzed from an objective point of view. One thing is certain: this release will be hated by most, adored by few and isn't suggested for your daily consumption. If you dare, read my review, make up your mind about this one-man experiment and give this nightmarish trip a try. Don't tell me I didn't warn you though...

Mastery is a one-man extreme metal project from California that just released its first full length record in ten years of existence. Please read on before you skip this review since this album is far better than your usual raw black metal or grindcore noise recorded in a shady basement by a depressive loser that has no friends and releases twenty demos each year. “Valis” comes in fact closest to the definition of a musical nightmare itself. It’s pitiless, turbulent and unpredictable. Imagine an ultrafast avant-garde bastard of the early chaotic years of American extreme metal band Absu, the weirdest material of Norwegian avant-garde band Shining and the most dystopian songs of Canadian progressive thrash metal innovators Voivod and you might get an approximate idea what to expect from Mastery. Mastery may also be described as a more extreme take on French avant-garde black metal band Deathspell Omega. The only other extreme metal band I know which is as hard to digest as Mastery is the surrealist British project Ebonylake. This boundary-breaking kind of music is so inhuman, radical and repulsive that it suddenly becomes addicting, innovating and mysterious again.

The three challenging main tracks feature fast and unchained screams that are surprisingly present throughout the entire record that features a lot of lyrics. The songs are carried by discordant, loud and noisy guitar tones and unchained blast beat rhythm sections. There are also some really mean breakdowns that are even more disturbing than the usual maddening speed. On the other side, some songs also have short breaks with calmer drum patterns, laid back acoustic guitar passages and reduced vocal efforts. The two other tracks are short transitional instrumentals that can be described as restrained industrial ambient tunes. They deliver two very short and highly welcome breaks from the unbearable forty-minute long madness that must be experienced in one shot to work efficiently if you are brave enough. Despite the overloaded wild mixture of genres, instruments and noises, the production of this record is surprisingly clean, modern and solid.

Who listens to this kind of music? There might be emotional people who like to find extreme sounds that confuse, torment and scare them. There might be open-minded experimental listeners who want to test their own boundaries of tolerance for radical arts. There might be a few courageous weirdoes that were curious to discover what is probably the most controversial extreme metal record since Morbid Angel’s mixture of industrial music, death metal and dark wave on “Illud Divinum Insanus”. Is there a philosophical message behind this project? Does it want to show us the deviant downfall of our society? Does it try to reveal the predictability of social media trying to uncover funny sensations like these? Does it parody the ridiculousness of the extreme metal genre itself? Is it simply a weird kind of trolling humour? Is this just a weird fun project without any meaning at all? Might there be a seriously twisted mind behind this rollercoaster ride? The lack of answers, background information and different interpretations make this release even more intriguing and enjoyable. Some people are fascinated by the unknown, others scared. I belong to the first category and in a weird way, I quite liked spending some time on this odd experiment. Even though I’m most certainly not going back to this very often, I can only recommend this to open-minded artists. If you want to join the discussion or simply make up your own mind about this phenomenon, get prepared for a disturbing, radical and wicked listening experience.

Final verdict: 8 out of 10 points

Please support the band and check out the following link:

Bandcamp / Label: http://theflenser.bandcamp.com/album/valis

Dear readers of my blog!

From time to time, I like to discover some really unusual bands with original sounds that come from exotic places. Indonesia is a diversified country with many interesting subcultures and this diversity is also present in their music. From traditional folk bands over commercial pop artists up to a growing number of rappers, the country has started to explore genres and styles from all around the world. This open-minded sense of discovery is also present in the national metal scene. Indonesia has an elevated number of death metal and grindcore bands, a constantly growing gothic metal scene and a small but really strong melodic power metal community. Fanasia is one of these new gothic metal bands that has decided to add a symphonic touch to its sound and to focus on epic and almost progressive song writing. The quintet from Wonosobo Regency in the province of Central Java exists since 2008. The band has released its first studio effort last year and played a couple of local festivals. Since the band really stands out among the elevated number of new metal bands from Indonesia, I decided to support the quintet as much as I can by spreading its name and writing a review of its first studio album after letting it grow on me for several months. If you are a fan of this kind of music, please give the band a chance and support the quintet on their different social media presences. Enjoy my review and their music and let me know what you think about Fanasia in the comment section. 

Fanasia is a gothic metal quintet from Indonesia that released its first full length effort “The Death Sin And Black Symphony” six years after its foundation in 2014. The band really stands out among similar artists due to several elements. First of all, the band writes quite long tracks with a lot of atmospheric, epic and progressive structures, including fluid changes of pace and playfully extended instrumental sections. Second, female lead singer Chesta has a really unique voice that is really high and squeaky but her unusual vocals somehow fit as counterpart to the powerful male growls. Third, this band has a talent to combine mysterious and almost floating keyboards sounds with gripping and low riffs and a fast and powerful rhythm section. Fourth, the band has definitely a lot of song writing talent since even the most complex tracks have impressive melodies and catchy choruses. A fifth element that adds to the band’s charm even if it’s maybe an undesired side effect in the first place is the direct and raw demo sound. The limited production really adds to the dark tone of the release and is a welcome change to the polished efforts of many Western genre leaders.

The opener “Mad Girl” is already an incredible effort and never gets boring despite a challenging length of over nine minutes. Atmospheric keyboard sounds and a playful rhythm section give the song an almost sacral tone before a vivid up-tempo section combines unchained male harsh vocals and elegant female clean vocals. It takes four minutes before the song comes around with the chorus but this one hits really hard and won’t get out of your mind anytime soon. I don’t understand the entirety of the vocals due to the high pitched vocals and the singer’s accent but I always feel like singing along to this track. The middle part comes around with atmospheric nature sound samples, whispered narrative vocals and uneasy high vocals that add to the mysterious tune of the record. The track is rounded out with a solid mid-tempo guitar solo and atmospheric keyboard sounds supported by an up-tempo rhythm section that leads slowly back to the unforgettable chorus. This is a perfect opener and I simply wish it never ended.

The rest of the record doesn’t quite reach that elevated level again but there is no filler on this consistent output either. All songs are entirely enjoyable if you get used to the high-pitched vocals and the rather raw sound. A highlight on the record is definitely the catchy mid-tempo half-ballad “Games of Heart” that features symphonic keyboard sounds that seem to be inspired by the popular English carol “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” in the opening. One of the best vocal efforts can be witnessed on the power ballad “My Angel Heart” that gets gradually more emotional, heavier and more melodic towards the end. The atmospheric album closer “Mydian” convinces as one of the darkest tracks on the record with a great use of symphonic elements and ends a really good album on a great note.

These days, there are more and more interesting metal bands from Indonesia. Apart of the popular death metal and grindcore scenes, the gothic metal scene is the most interesting one and Fanasia is one of the most promising newcomers of this genre. With a better production and more promotion, this band has the potential to attract larger audiences and get more attention from fans of the Western world as well. If you like what you hear, please support the band on social media networks and spread their name.

Final verdict: 8 out of 10 points

Please support the band and check out the following links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Fanasia.GothicMetal

ReverbNation: http://www.reverbnation.com/fanasiagothicmetal

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIXNpWX8ufFb66mZJASTK5w

Ladies and gentlemen!

Apocalyptica is back! The legendary band from Finland is going to release its first studio album in almost five years in North America next Tuesday. This is definitely a new beginning for one of the most original bands of the last twenty-five years. Check out my review below, open up your mind and support this great band.

By the way, you can still listen to a free and legal stream of the entire release for the next few days only:

Apocalyptica has always been a diversified yet unique band. In the past five years, the band has released a video game soundtrack, recorded a commercially successful regular album and gone back to its classical roots inspired by Richard Wagner for a couple of sophisticated concerts that were recorded for a great live release. “Shadowmaker” also tries out something new as the line-up includes a regular singer for the very first time in Apocalyptica’s career. Franky Perez has a powerful and versatile voice even though he isn’t the most charismatic and impressive singer. Still, his continuous presence on the record adds a coherent flow and Apocalyptica sounds like a real band rather than a project that invites a couple of random guest singers as it was the case on the previous efforts. Another thing that keeps the album together is its atmosphere somewhere between melancholy and mystery.

Fear not, old fans, for the band still includes a couple of great instrumentals on the album plus a few epic songs where the instrumental passages add much more to the listening experience than the vocals. The menacing bonus song “Reign of Fear” would be a perfect tune for a horror movie. In the beginning, the track sounds disturbing, heavy and slow and by the end it sounds dramatic, epic and fast. This is the best instrumental track the band has done in a while. “Riot Lights” is another outstanding instrumental track based on hypnotizing and rather fast cello sounds but it features an elevated amount of electronic samples and some weird background noises that give the song a quite unique identity. This is definitely the most courageous track on the new album. Those who want to hear some calmer and purely classically inspired material should appreciate the epic album closers “’Til Death Do Us Part” and “Dead Man’s Eyes” even though the latter one has some noticeable lengths and fails to end the album with a bang.

In general, the useless short opener and the unfocused closer are the weakest parts of the album and fail to kick the record off on a high note and end it in a glorious way. The only other track that I don’t appreciate on a personal level is “House of Chains” which sounds a little bit like a commercial metalcore song on cellos that could also come from Bullet For My Valentine or Trivium. I know a couple of great metalcore bands but the mixture of classical music and this kind of modern metal just sounds odd and reminds me of the track “Repressed” from Apocalyptica’s greatest hits record. The track feels alien on this album.

All other songs with vocals work quite well. “Cold Blood” is really catchy and features great cello riffs, intriguing background noises and truly soulful vocals. The song has the most promising commercial potential along with the compact bonus track “Come Back Down” which sounds a little bit out of context on the album but that convinces with an experimental drum play and a chorus that I would describe as chaotic beauty.

The gloomy title song “Shadowmaker” goes in a very different direction as it sounds really epic and mysterious. I immediately liked this courageous first single choice that never falls off despite a challenging length of eight minutes. “Slow Burn” is another really melancholic song that could have found its righteous place on Apocalyptica’s amazing self-titled effort ten years ago. “Sea Song (You Waded Out)” has a similar approach but has a more elegiac yet hopeful tone that should please to those who liked Apocalyptica’s “Reflections” release twelve years ago. It’s not just because of the title that the song sounds like Apocalyptica’s own take on Rammstein’s melancholic ballad “Seemann”.

The great thing about this release is that almost all tracks have grown on me after four or five spins. At first contact, I wasn’t all that impressed and missed Apocalyptica’s old classical and emotional style. This album is still not as consistent and profound as “Cult” or “Apocalyptica” but the record has convinced me with a balanced mixture of Apocalyptica’s old classical style and more recent commercial efforts, a fusion of a clear guiding line in form of a mostly melancholic and mysterious atmosphere and an elevated number of short experiments, a potpourri of extended instrumental parts and solid vocal performances by the same versatile singer. My first advice to fully enjoy this effort is to buy the limited edition of this release and to always listen to the record as a whole. My second advice is to give the album time to grow on you. Don’t give up after one or even two tries. Let the album work on you in different situations. I’m sure you will get rewarded for your patience at a certain point. It’s great to see that Apocalyptica has shifted away from more accessible music and delivered it most profound studio record in ten years. This album can be seen as a new beginning for the band and I’m curious to see where the band goes from here.

Final verdict: 8.5 out of 10 points

Please support the band and check out the following links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Apocalyptica

Homepage: http://www.apocalyptica.com/en/

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ApocalypticaVideos/videos

Dear readers of my blog!

The Foreshadowing's Oionos may sound dark, depressive and vile but this excellent doom/gothic metal release from Italy spreads an intense message of peace by showing us among others the horrors of war and a post-apocalyptic world. Lay back, close your eyes and discover the band's melancholic universe.

The Forsehadowing is a gothic doom metal band that sounds so melancholic that one would expect them to come from Finland but they are actually based in sunny Italy. “Oionos” is their second out of three full length releases so far, with a fourth output being recorded right now. This album may sound minimalist at first but it has enough subtle changes to remain interesting even though it takes a few spins to open up for this kind of sorrowful music. The record has a clear guiding line in form of a slow, melancholic and depressive atmosphere and post-apocalyptic memento mori lyrics that are truly worth to be read while listening to this piece of art.

In my book, the most outstanding element of this band is the vocals. Marco Benevento is one of the very best singers in the doom and gothic metal genres. His clean vocals remind me a little bit of Amorphis’ Tomi Joutsen, especially when he was still active in Sinisthra. Fans of depressive rock and gothic metal bands like Anathema, Katatonia, Moonspell, Opeth and Paradise Lost should also immediately appreciate Marco Benevento’s elegant, low and rich singing style. His charismatic and charming organ almost works like an additional instrument that complements the sometimes lethargic, at other moments dominatingly heavy drums, the low and oppressing bass sounds, the melancholic and sad keyboard tones and the longing and numbing guitar sounds. In the melancholic ballad “Survivors Sleep”, his vocals along with the inspiring lyrics and the hypnotizing piano melodies make this simplistic tune actually incredibly intense.

The band adds some smooth diversity in several tracks by decently adding male choirs that aren’t a far call from Gregorian chants which give some tunes like the sacral instrumental “Solilo Uium” a more epic and symphonic touch. Sometimes, Marco Benevento himself chooses an almost meditative approach for his vocals, as in the middle passage of “Lost Humanity”. The keyboards add some subtle symphonic elements in the epic “Chant of Widows” that constantly changes and turns out to be not only the most diversified but also most representative track of this band for this album. A few narrative vocal samples also add to both the consistent atmosphere and the thoughtful lyrics, for example in the great title track “Oionos”. We can even here excerpts from Roosevelt’s famous speech from his declaration of war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in “Hope. She’s in the Water” and from Oppenheimer’s speech about a post-atomic world in “Revelation 3:11”. The chosen excerpts always perfectly fit in each song.

And now it’s time to kneel down for one of the very best cover songs ever done. Sting’s “Russians” is an emotional track with intense and truly meaningful lyrics that are maybe more meaningful in 2015 than ever before which is actually a sad thing. The Foreshadowing transformed the timeless original into a gripping and tear-jerking song that perfectly fits the atmosphere of the record somewhere between despair and hope. The track is a little bit slower, more melancholic and epic than the original. The introduction and closure features hypnotizing keyboard sounds and a thunderous drumming that sounds like exploding bombs. The vocals in this track are simply incredible. If you still doubt Marco Benevento is one of the very best of his kind, listen to this song.

What kind of rating does this album deserve? It’s definitely not a record which is easy to digest and which I could listen to all day long but that automatically comes with its genre. The only other thing I could criticize is that the band’s other albums are somehow more diversified than this one but on the other side, this minimalistic approach makes Oionos really stand out and there is still a high amount of creativity in each tune. Objectively said, this record has a crystal clear production, an intriguing cover artwork designed by Septicflesh’s Spiros Antoniou, a clear and coherent guiding line, meaningful and outstanding lyrics, a fitting musical performance and absolutely charismatic and outstanding vocals. Any doom and gothic metal fan should worship this band and record and spread the name of this overlooked and underrated band.

Final verdict: 9 out of 10 points

Please support the band and check out the following link:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theforeshadowing

Sadly, the lyrics of Sting's "Russians" almost seem to be as relevant today than back in the Cold War:

In Europe and in America,
There's a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets

Mister Krushchev says, "We will bury you!"
I don't subscribe to this point of view
It'd be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too

How can I save my little boy
From Oppenheimer's deadly toy?
There is no monopoly on common sense
On either side of the political fence

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology,
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

There is no historical precedent
To put the words in the mouth of the president
There's no such thing as a winnable war
It's a lie we don't believe anymore

Mister Reagan says, "We will protect you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you,
I hope the Russians love their children too

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology,
But what might save us, me and you,
Is if the Russians love their children too

Dear readers of my blog!

Here comes another review of a highly anticipated record of the young year 2015. Ironically, I have become quite a big Nightwish fan when Tarja Turunen left the band ten years ago. I have bought four of their records since then and seen them in concert at "On a Dark Winter's Night Festival" in Oberhausen back in 2007 with bands such as Amorphis, Letzte Instanz, Tarot, Jesus On Extasy, Dope Stars Inc. and Blind. On the other side, one of my best friends in Germany progressively stopped caring about his once favourite band after Tarja's departure. The band's eight studio album (if you don't count "Imaginearum - The Score") marks yet another important change for the band with English multi-instrumentalist and singer Troy Donockley and Dutch singer Floor Jansen on board. I decided to take a few weeks before reviewing the new challenging output with a running time of over seventy-eight minutes. Read my final thoughts on the band's new chapter below!

"Endless Forms Most Beautiful" is Nightwish's most complex and challenging record to date which takes more than just a handful of spins to open up and work on the listener. At first contact, I thought that Nightwish underused its new members, repeated itself too much and didn't add anything interesting to their sound. After further review, these negative points were mostly confirmed but at least the different songs grew a lot on me. The record is pretty much comparable to its predecessor "Imaginaerum" but ultimately another step down for the band. 

This release can be divided into three categories. First of all, there are some mellower symphonic folk metal songs that are all potential single candidates. First radio friendly single "Élan" has a few beautiful folk elements but the song sounds much too close to past efforts. The track feels like a mixture of "Nemo" and "Last of the Wild". "My Waldén" is already more interesting as it shines thanks to Troy Donockley's vocals and folk instruments. The track sounds like a mixture of a typical Nightwish single and a soft Eluveitie track in the middle part. Both "Alpenglow" and "Edema Ruh" hit a similar vein but are maybe even softer and more keyboard driven. The songs are situated somewhere between new age age music like Enya and eighties' pop music in the key of Sandra. It feels as if these songs had worked even better with Anette Olzon's vocals. This is one of my major criticisms of this album. I have followed Floor Jansen's career for ten years now and have appreciated her powerful rocking vocals in After Forever and ReVamp. On this album, she lacks identity and sounds surprisingly close to her predecessor. Her vocals sound somewhat restrained and tame. I'm pretty sure she was told to sing this way by band leader Tuomas Holopainen and I hope he changes his mind for future releases to utilize Floor Jansen's unique talent to the maximum. The live shows have already proven that Floor Jansen rocks much more on stage than on this studio record.

The second kind of tunes are the heavier and bombastic cinematic metal tracks. The best tune of this kind is the absolute album highlight "Yours Is an Empty Hope" where we are finally reminded that we actually have to deal with a metal band. The track takes up some speed, the main riffs are mean, the orchestrations truly apocalyptical and the mixture of Floor Jansen diversified female vocals and Marco Hietala's agressive and unchained male vocals works best here. Opener "Shudder Before the Beautiful" sounds very similar but is a little bit too closely inspired by "Dark Chest of Wonders". In general, I'm getting the impression that Nightwish rehashes some ideas they have used better in the past on the record which is my second major criticism.

The last category are instrumental driven ballads such as "Our Decades in the Sun" and "The Eyes of Sharbat Gula". Both songs are among the weaker tracks of the album. The former one can't equalize the magic and majesty of ballads like "Sleeping Sun" but at least, it fits as a more relaxing break in the album context. The latter one is plain disappointing. A track related to one of the most fascinating pictures taken in the last quarter of the twentieth century should have sounded more emotional and intense in my opinion. This leads to my last negative point since this song is the most striking example of several tracks which are way too long and repetitive. This one clocks in with a length of over six minutes. As an instrumental introduction to the epic album closer, this tune could have been shortened by at least fifty percent and the effect would have been exactly the same.

Enter "The Greatest Show on Earth", the band's most ambitious track ever written and a mixture of all three categories described above. The conceptual composition comes around in five parts with extensive instrumental passages lead by multiple choirs and orchestras, narrative parts, animal and nature sound samples and metal passages with female and male vocals. Tuomas Holopainen tries to be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart but he is not even Therion's Christofer Johnsson. This song drags on for far too long and it takes a whopping six minutes before the track takes up some speed and structure. If we combine the first six nearly instrumental minutes with those of the previous track, we get over twelve minutes of boredom that simply kill an otherwise acceptable to good album. The song then gets slightly better but lacks true imagination and progression as it can't match previous classics like "The Poet and the Pendulum", "Creek Mary's Blood" and even "Lappi (Lapland)". This song would have sounded more appropriate on the score to the band's movie or on Tuomas Holopainen's solo release "The Life and Times of Scrooge". I'm not joking when I'm saying that I fell asleep the first three times I tried to make it through this tune. This track is a perfect example that less is sometimes so much more.

In the end, I must admit that this record is rather disappointing for me even though it's not a complete failure. The first nine songs are in fact quite entertaining Nightwish standard tracks that don't reinvent anything but which are mostly really great to listen to and which work great in concert. The last thirty minutes are simply plodding and overambitious. They remind me of Icarus who got too close to the sun and crashed back down to earth. In this sense, I hope the next Nightwish album gets rid of ambitious conceptual lyrics inspired by authors, philosophers and scientists, multiple choirs, folk instruments and orchestras in each song and twenty-four minute long five-step suites. I want to hear a heavier output without any guiding line that uses Troy Donockley's instrumental skills and Floor Jansen's energizing vocals better than on this release. In the end, this album is for die-hard Nightwish and especially Tuomas Holopainen fans only.

Final verdict: 6.5 out of 10 points

Please support the band and check out the following links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nightwish

Homepage: http://nightwish.com

Set list:

1. The Greatest Show on Earth (Chapter V: Sea-Worn Driftwood) (Introduction)

2. Shudder Before the Beautiful

3. Yours Is an Empty Hope

4. Amaranth

5. She is My Sin

6. Endless Forms Most Beautiful

7. My Walden

8. The Islander

9. Élan

10. Weak Fantasy

11. Storytime

12. Nemo

13. I Want My Tears Back

14. Stargazers

15. Sleeping Sun

16. The Greatest Show on Earth (Chapter II: Life & Chapter III: The Toolmaker)

Encore:

17. Ghost Love Score

18. Last Ride of the Day

19. The Greatest Show on Earth (Chapter IV: The Understanding & Chapter V: Sea-Worn Driftwood) (Outroduction)