They have done it again! I didn't expect the band to be able to beat their amazing previous outputs but here it is and it wasn't even a close call. Unbeing delivers a progressive metal record that should revolutionize the entire genre. This is more than simple music, it's a cinematic experience for your ears, heart and soul. ''Ceres'' tells a mysterious and haunting science-fiction horror story that is intense from start to finish. If you like movies like ''Alien'' or video games like ''Soma'', then this record was made for people like you! The plot unfolds in the massive title track but those who don't care about the story also get the six different instrumental parts of the title song as separate tracks without the dialogues. This is an interesting alternative but you should actually care about the story. Let me tell you that the story isn't always chronologically and completely told and it's up to the listeners to put some of the pieces together which makes this record an intellectually challenging experience in a very intriguing manner. I might suggest you to put your headphones on, get the beautifully crafted digital storyboard ready, dim the lights and experience the title track right away in its entirety without any pauses or disturbances.

You might now say that conceptual science-fiction stories are nothing new in the genre since Ayreon has released numerous records of this kind but ''Ceres'' is still absolutely unique. First of all, this intense story is told in twenty-nine compact minutes and isn't stretched to a double-album around two and a half hours. Secondly, the title song is composed of six intensively atmospheric tracks connected with a few samples from the NASA archives and some dialogues of the different characters as the story slowly unfolds. The samples and dialogues sound incredibly authentic as if you were living the events in a space shuttle and there are no distracting guest musicians or singers requested here. Thirdly, the plot and the atmosphere it builds up are the essence of this release. The music actually serves the story. You get dramatic riffs, pumping bass guitar sounds, vivid drum passages, floating keyboard sounds and spacey guitar melodies. What you don't get are useless distractions such as pretentious chapman stick sounds, endless guitar solos, pointless symphonic bombast, theatrical choirs and unrelated exotic folk sections. Unbeing still plays great music but what matters is the listening experience as a whole. That's why I won't recommend any particular passages.

As I said before, this record is a revolution of progressive music. It's a milestone many people won't have the chance to witness in their lives because Unbeing is an overlooked underground band. Here is your chance to be one of the few to actually get to hear this monolith of majesty. Go on the website of the band, download this album and enjoy. If you like what you hear, spread the word about these unknown geniuses. If you ignore this review however, you will never know what you have missed and believe me that this won't be a wise choice.

Final rating: 99%

Death Angel's eighth studio release and fifth output since its reformation fifteen years ago proves that American thrash metal is currently experiencing a high-quality revival. ''The Evil Divide'' isn't a far call from the quality of the last outputs of Anthrax, Megadeth and Over Kill. This authentic and refreshing effort would be considered a classic if it had been released three decades earlier and still sounds coherent and dynamic nowadays. The Bay Area quintet sounds as energetic and energizing, hungry and juvenile as they were when they started playing music as teenagers. Each of the ten homogeneous tracks comes around with pissed-off vocals, bumblebee bass guitar sounds, powerful drum patterns, technically well-executed sharp riffs and melodic mid- to up-tempo guitar solos. The only thing to criticize is that some tunes sound quite alike and that this release is lacking diversity and maybe one truly outstanding tune.

One of the few slightly different tunes on this record is the longing ''Lost'' where Mark Osegueda delivers one of his most diversified vocal performances ever. From soothing melodic parts in the key of classic heavy metal to passionate high-pitched passages that aren't a far call from power metal to his rawer signature style, he sounds spot on throughout the entire track. This tune is probably the softest and catchiest on the album but it still rocks steadily. This track would have been a perfect single choice and is one of the band's most harmonious compositions ever.

One of my personal highlights on this release is ''Father of Lies'' with its angry dynamics that shift to a more melodic style in the middle part and later on again in the coda where stunningly beautiful acoustic and electric guitar harmonies supported by a distinctive bass sound give a welcome break from the unchained high-speed base of the tune. This track is perfectly balanced and offers some of the greatest song writing in the band's impressive career.

Another personal favorite is ''The Electric Cell'' that meanders between heavy metal riffs with a slight extreme metal touch and faster thrash metal riffs in a quite epic way. This is probably the most technical, progressive and creative tune on the album. As a cherry on the top of the cake, the middle part introduces short psychedelic sound samples and weird folk chants that lead into one of the best guitar solo sections on the entire album. 

The diversified and entertaining album closer ''Let the Pieces Fall'' that mixes straighter up-tempo parts and melodic mid-tempo passages with its outstanding guitar play and that also convinces with another enthusiastic vocal performance ends a great record on a high note.

It's interesting that the best tracks on the record are the ones where the band experiments a little bit more and either sounds more melodic or more progressive than usual. Their traditional thrash metal monsters are still vivid but sometimes exchangeable. The band definitely has the technical capacities to pull off a genre-transcending output which isn't the case for many of their colleagues such as Exodus, Megadeth or Slayer that fail when they try out something different. I hope that Death Angel's song writing will become even more courageous in the future.

If you need an authentic, powerful and refreshing dose of thrash metal without many distracting experiments, Death Angel's ''The Evil Divide'' is a truly excellent choice even though the band has the potential for more than that. The new songs are also promising enough to make the band's passionate live shows even more intense in the future, so make sure to catch this quintet on tour this autumn.

Final rating: 80%

Since Heaven's Cry's comeback five years ago, the band sound has progressively become more complex, heavy and intellectual. While the first two records included ten or eleven quite catchy, compact and melodic tracks with a total running time around fifty minutes, the third album still had shorter compositions but more sophisticated song structures that sometimes sounded too complicated for their own good. This new release goes one step further. While it still has a running time of over fifty minutes, the band's latest release only features seven tracks including one tune of more than fourteen minutes which was subdivided into four parts. Even though the songs are the most complex the band has ever written, the group managed to build these tracks around some catchy vocal lines, memorable guitar harmonies or powerful riffs which makes the album easier to digest than the previous output. 

The opening tune ''The Human Factor'' represents rather well what Heaven's Cry stands for these days. The track opens with eerie sound effects and complex riffs before catchy dual vocal harmonies give the listener the occasion to grasp at something structured. Pierre St. Jean's raw, psychedelic and low vocals harmonize very well with Sylvain Auclair's uplifting, melodic and high vocal skills.The song constantly shifts and changes from psychedelic breaks with echoing sound effects to powerful parts with truly gripping riffs to sound samples of some excerpts from an intellectually challenging speech by American philosopher Noam Chomsky but the opening vocal harmonies hold this complex opener together. The vocals make the listener revisit this song and with each spin, other stunning details stand out such as the space rock keyboard sounds or the extraordinary bass guitar play. Heaven's Cry put more creativity into this single song than a band like Dream Theater into its entire last double-album. It takes a few spins to realize the entire potential of this tune but it's worth to accept this lengthy challenge to fully discover and embrace one of the very best progressive metal tunes in recent memory.

Some of the other songs are nearly equally outstanding. Title track ''Outcast'' is maybe the heaviest song the band has ever written. The tinny drum sound, fast guitar riffs and bumblebee bass guitar sounds in the closing instrumental section recall several progressive death metal bands. Despite its complex heaviness, this song is hold together by the guiding line of the memorable opening bass guitar riff that is incredibly well executed. ''Symmetry'' has a calmer approach with more fragile vocals, melodic acoustic guitar harmonies, a few electronic influences and a dominating bass guitar play that convinces with its diversity despite a certain lack of distinctively reoccurring sonic elements. This tune is somewhat the hidden gem of this great album. The almost relaxing ''A Shift in Scenery'' with its hypnotizing guitar and vocal melodies leading to a powerful chorus in five compact minutes feels like a relief in between all these complex tunes and is probably the most accessible song on this release.

Even though some tracks open up to the listener after multiple spins, this record's epic entitled ''The Day the System Failed'' is a really tricky challenge with its unusual rhythms, diversified phases without any coherent transitions and vocals that rather focus on telling an important message than on providing some harmonies. There are some parts of the song that are really atmospheric and include brilliant ideas while other passages feel incompatible or overloaded. This complicated song truly evokes mixed feelings and is ultimately slightly disappointing.

In the end, the band has sacrificed the melodic lightness of its earliest releases for a grittier tone and a focus on more philosophic topics. Even though I preferred the band's initial style and sound a little bit more, ''Outcast'' is an incredibly creative, diversified and meaningful record that any progressive metal fan should have in his collection. The new songs are a little bit hard to digest in concert if the sound isn't perfect because each track is very complex and detailed but it's a pleasure to dive headfirst into this intellectual record with your headphones on.

Final verdict: 83%

First things first, I have been a faithful Red Hot Chili Peppers fan since my youth and own all their studio records plus a few compilations and live cuts and there isn't one single record I find just average or even boring. I'm a sucker for the band's drug-influenced mixture of funk, punk rock and rap with a few metal elements on records like ''Freaky Styley'', ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'' and ''One Hot Minute'' but even the more recent, intellectual and mature outputs had a certain charm and especially the creative, diversified and emotional last output ''I'm With You'' and its extra tracks released on vinyl were truly impressive. If you read this type of introduction, you might already see it coming. I'm having a lot of trouble appreciating the band's new output ''The Getaway''. I wouldn't be as harsh to say that this record sucks but it's definitely the band's worst studio record so far. It's painfully average and at times really boring which is probably even worse than a failed experiment for a band that rose to fame by putting socks on their penises on stage. To give you a more precise idea about this new record, imagine a less inspired version of ''By the Way'' minus its few more rocking tunes.

I guess new producer Danger Mouse is to blame for the final result. The band had worked with Rick Rubin for more than two decades and released six highly influential albums before they decided they needed a change of routine and a new collaborator who would push them to try out new things. In theory, this sounds like a good idea for a band that represents the term ''crossover'' better than any other band around the world. The band had already a whole new record ready to record but their new producer challenged them to make a completely different album with him. Danger Mouse is more than just a producer on this album since he has numerous song writing credits and performs Mellotron, organ and synthesizers on more than half of the songs. Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich mixed the album which includes string sections, female background singers and choirs and it barely sounds like a rock album. I wasn't expecting a heavy metal record but I wasn't expecting a grown-old soft rock compilation which is almost entirely composed of mid-tempo half-ballads. Gone are the ferocious hard rocking solos. Gone are the vivid rhythm sections. Gone are the wild vocals mixing hysteric screams with angry rap parts. What we have hear is a harmonious, peaceful and ultimately boring record that might please female teenagers who have fallen in love with a sunny boy during their summer vacation but not those who are expecting some rock 'n roll.

On the positive side, this record definitely has a special vibe and soul and a clear guiding line. The band doesn't repeat itself and tries out something new which is always positive in my book. The guitar work sounds like a mixture of soft psychedelic rock of the seventies with a few Hawaiian folk sound inspirations. The bass guitar adds some light and sometimes danceable funk sounds while the drum play isn't doing anything more than adding relaxing beats in the background. This peaceful structure is enriched with soft string parts, a few Mellotron, piano and synthesizer sounds and inoffensive female background vocals and occasional choirs to fill the emptiness. The main vocals always sound the same and are exclusively based upon melodic and calm mid-tempo patterns. As always, the predictable lyrics are either about personal relationships or praise the state of California as it has been the case since ''Californication'' where the band already started to lose some of its unique energy. Maybe the Red Hot Chili Peppers have become so smooth, old and calm that they should call themselves the Pale Fluffy Bubble Teas now. At least the band's current live performances are as poignant as ever.

The mixture described above works well for a handful of songs. Title track and opener ''The Getaway'' has a peacefully hypnotizing and numbing sound and works well as an airy and dreamy lullaby inspired by pop music of the eighties. First single ''Dark Necessities'' has a really positive vibe and a few catchy vocal lines transmitting a healthy dose of lust for life despite a melancholic undertone. After these two songs, one expects a change, an experiment or at least a more vivid tune but none of the above ever happens. Some songs are barely saved by a few inspired guitar solos towards the very end like ''Goodbye Angels''. The most boring song on here is probably the mellow ''Encore'' which rather sounds like a sonic farewell that has no redeeming song writing qualities whatsoever. ''The Hunter'' is only slightly better thanks to a harmonious combination of psychedelic slow-motion guitar riffs and melancholic piano and string sounds but the track goes nowhere at all while the bassist and drummer must have been mentally absent during the recording of this tune. I guess the hunter in this story fell asleep and didn't shoot any animals. ''The Longest Wave'' isn't much better and sounds so streamlined that it is the sonic antithesis of an actual wave. 

Aside of the charming lead single and the acceptable title track, only two songs are worth to be mentioned as positive elements on this repetitive output. The entertaining ''Go Robot'' reminds of a commercially flavored funk rock tune of the eighties with some spacey synthesizer sounds of the seventies that surprises with some absurd and amusing lyrics. ''This Ticonderoga'' has a few vivid genre changes and features some heavier riffs that meet psychedelic guitar sounds and even the vocals vary slightly and include minimal spoken word parts and a liberating shout at the end. All these songs would have been the calmest on a Red Hot Chili Peppers record twenty years ago but today they almost feel like nostalgic outbursts of emotions.

In the end, this record is interesting for three types of fans or situations. This record offers some smooth background music while relaxing with your girlfriend in front of a campfire on a Californian beach at night during on a road trip. Nostalgic soft rock aficionados with a weakness for the hippie spirit might also enjoy this release. Die-hard fans and collectors of anything the Red Hot Chili Peppers have released might also find a few redeemable features after multiple spins. Since I won't do a road trip to California and don't want to be a hippie, I guess the last category is the one that represents me best. Well, at least the cover artwork is really inspiring. To be completely honest and serious though, ''The Getaway'' is probably one of this year's most disappointing releases for me. Now I'm going to wash my ears with a few spins of ''Mother's Milk''.

Final verdict: 60%

"The Present World is a Dream ~25th Anniversary Commemoration Best-Of Album~" is another compilation record of the productive Japanese trio Ningen-Isu that celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first release on this greatest hits album. Aside of being highly recommendable to those who want to get introduced to this legendary band that mixes swaggering rock 'n roll, sweating hard rock, tight heavy metal, brooding doom metal and occasional speed metal with fascinating lyrics about Japanese traditions, mythology and literature, this compilation is also recommendable for those who are already slightly familiar with the band.

First of all, if compared to previous compilations, this record focuses a lot on the band's first EP which has been out of print for many years and the band's first full length record which is also rather hard to find. Especially the first disc introduces the listener to the first steps of the band that already had a natural flow and tight chemistry back in those days. The energizing and fast ''Mountain of Needles'' with its punk vibes and the catchy retro rock anthem ''Neurotic I LOVE YOU'' that invites to dance represent the large spectrum of musical inspiration that already characterized this open-minded band two and a half decades earlier. The rest of the first disc is composed of the band's greatest tracks from the early and middle years such as the gloomy and hypnotizing ''Ghost Train'' with its dominating bass sound and numbing vocals or the constantly shifting yet perfectly floating ''Shinagawa Lover's Suicide'' which doesn't only summarize the band's incredible song writing qualities but which might be the singular best song the band has ever written.

The second disc focuses on the band's more recent material. Between the last compilation released five years prior to this one which I reviewed before the band finally got some well-deserved international praise and this ambitious release, the hard-working Japanese trio released four highly recommendable new studio albums that are represented with many songs here. As if this wasn't enough, the last four tunes of the second disc are brand new and exclusive to this release. ''A Written Invitation to Hell'' is one of the band's fastest and most aggressive tracks with a vibe somewhere between thrash and speed metal with a hard rocking vibe that recalls a mixture of Anthrax and Motorhead. This outstanding tune will tear your head off. ''The Glory of Vice'' showcases a completely different side of the band and is a psychedelic doom metal monster with gloomy riffs and highly emotional and versatile vocals. It's a typical song for the band but for those who aren't familiar with Ningen-Isu, this track might be compared to Black Sabbath at its peak in the mid-seventies. Yes, this song is that great. ''The Sad Librarian'' is a more rhythm-orientated heavy metal track that develops a great flow based on a simple yet addicting main riff, a diversified performance by both vocalist and a playfully extended hard rocking guitar solo. This song also recalls Black Sabbath and Motorhead but beats anything these bands have released recently. Finally, ''The Colour Out of Space'' which also got an official video clip and can be seen as the lead single of this record, is the most atmospheric of the four new tunes. It mixes eerie and almost spacey sounds with heavy riffs, a tight bass guitar sound and precise drumming. This track sounds like a gothic version of a Black Sabbath song with some King Crimson influences. It takes some time for this track to grow but it ends up being an absolute highlight on a consistent high-quality release. All four new songs are absolutely outstanding and rate this compilation up.

To keep it short, this release is both essential for new and old fans of the band. It mostly focuses on the band's forgotten early records and rocking roots and on the trio's most recent releases including four great new tracks. Obviously, it also includes some of the most important hits of the group. The colourful artwork, the extended booklet and the quality of the material including the jewel case itself are carefully crafted and rate this product up. This isn't a cheap greatest hits efforts compiling a few singles but a product where the band was obviously involved and put its heart and soul into it. Anybody who calls himself a metal fan should own an album of this band and this greatest hits effort is a highly recommendable choice. If you still mourn the loss of Motorhead and fear the nearing end of Black Sabbath, rejoice and listen to some Ningen-Isu.

Final verdict: 95%