Alien Avenge - 第五太陽紀 / Tonatiuh (2010)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Alien Avenge is a strange Taiwanese band labeled as melodic death metal. The band is surely innovative, but is quite hard to digest. The band has so many different faces that it’s hard to get what the six musicians are actually trying to accomplish on their first record, Tonatiuh, which performed surprisingly well in Asia, and even got some attention from European countries thanks to the recommendation and participation of Chthonic’s bassist Doris Yeh.

To begin with, we have short and not very appealing instrumentals on this record, such as the disharmonic and almost random piano interlude “81025”. This interlude sounds like a missed attempt at creating a bastardized UneXpect and X Japan instrumental hybrid. I really can’t make any sense of a song like this. On the other hand, the band also comes around with one rather promising instrumental, “Ice”, featuring acoustic guitars and progressive keyboard sounds. This is the kind of music I would expect to hear on a new Opeth release, for example. Why are these instrumentals here? I have no clue, because they don’t have anything to do with, and don’t fit in with the rest of the record. They rather slow the record down instead of adding a well integrated new dimension to it. Maybe these songs were just quickly made to stretch and fill the record with more music, or maybe they’re here on purpose to mix us up just like the rest of this album. Maybe I just don’t get it.

Other than that, we’ve got a few brutal, fast-paced modern extreme metal songs that are influenced by bands such as Children Of Bodom, In Flames, and Soilwork, but also some harder stuff like Nevermore in the more atmospheric moments. Some tracks have an apocalyptic touch, such as “Revenge War” or “Melting”, featuring Chthonic’s bassist Doris Yeh, who performs some piercing screams on this song. Both tracks convince with their well-suited keyboard parts, gripping riffs, and well performed melodic guitar solos. The latter track even has a few slightly progressive transitions and is among the best pieces on here.

Other tracks like “Torment” or “Hung War” are much more straightforward, and yet way too chaotic for me. The vocals in these tracks are somewhere between death and black metal styles, and could appeal to those who liked the last Sigh record, for example, or some songs made by Absu.

There’s also an epic track called “Intrusion Collapse”, that approaches the ten minute mark. This is somewhat of a highlight amongst this record’s weirdness. The track starts promisingly, with epic keyboard sounds that make you expect a power metal track, but the song shifts to a melodic black metal anthem in the key of Chthonic or Dimmu Borgir, before it suddenly gets a clear death metal touch again. The mixture doesn’t work all too badly once you get used to it. But just before the five minute mark, the song seems to be over, and we get a few seconds of silence before a rather calm and atmospheric interlude leads us into an equally strange second part of the same track. These parts are clearly jazz influenced. At this point, I’m not surprised by anything anymore. Once you start to enjoy the calmer mood with atmospheric keyboards and great guitar melodies, the madness kicks off again and we get some blistering extreme metal. The entire track represents the record very well. The song is promising and has its moments. The technical abilities of the band are quite good, but I feel that nothing fits together well at all. Even after multiple spins, this song and record remain completely inaccessible to me, which doesn’t happen quite often with my preference for the experimental. I had less headaches watching David Lynch’s entire “Dumbland” series than listening to this record.

In the end, this record is a truly confusing output. From addicting genre tracks to overwhelmingly chaotic songs, you get a whole bunch of more or less gripping variations of the melodic death metal genre. Short instrumentals and overlong tracks make this record very hard to digest. The album feels too ambitious, directionless, and totally overwhelming. Even the lyrics vary from Chinese to English from song to song without any apparent reason. The tracks don’t really fit together, and this record has no clear guiding line apart from its genre categorization. Even the songs themselves have parts that don’t fit together. We get sudden breaks in some tracks, and one thinks for sure that a new song has started, but according to the track labels, it’s still the same song, but has completely changed.

Yes, this band has got some talent and they surely have loads of ideas, but they don’t manage to put them into consistent song writing. That’s why this record is rather frustrating and quite hard to sit through. I can only recommend this album to chaotic and destructive minds and die hard extreme metal fans that look to try out everything from this genre.

2.25 // 5

Dalriada - Napisten Hava (2012)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

The six members of Hungary’s Dalriada are back with their patented brand of violin and flute-laden folk metal. On this record, the band also invited a number of gifted guest musicians who play bagpipes, cello, doublebass, kobza, and viola, as well as additional acoustic guitars, flutes, and violins. The band offers up different talented vocalists performing quite different styles, from clean female leads over male throat singing to a few harsh vocals. The female vocals are the most dominating, and to my surprise, the singer doesn’t only look good, but also has a grounded and powerful voice rather than coming across as another overwhelming symphonic metal diva. The vocals are all performed in Hungarian, and I’m positively surprised by how epic, graceful, melodic, and powerful this language sounds.

The approach and style of this band is comparable to acts such as Arkona and Haggard, but I prefer the Hungarian band over its Russian and German colleagues. Fans of folk metal bands such as Ensiferum, Elvenking, or Eluveitie should also give this excellent band a fair try. The joyful folk parts and imaginative compositions even remind me of the great Mike Oldfield. Despite these different influences, all of Dalriada’s records manage to have a clear focus without forgetting a few well-integrated surprises. Their latest effort,Napisten Hava, is undoubtedly one of the band’s strongest outputs. The only shame here is that I haven’t discovered this brilliant band sooner.

After a short, traditional violin introduction that reminds me of bands such as Bodh’aktan, Fiddler’s Green, Les Cowboys Fringants, Les Bâtards Du Nord, Naio Ssaion, or Rondo Veneziano, the band kicks its latest record off with the epic “A Dudas”, which includes a truly catchy chorus led by powerful female vocals and excellent chorals. These moments almost feel like a truly touching Christmas carol. The really great things about this song are the folk elements. The fast violin parts just make me want to dance, and the bagpipes add a lot of powerful volume and majestic atmosphere to the track. The throat singing is well performed and adds another fresh note. Despite all of these influences, the song is led by strong guitar riffs and melodies, and also has a few faster sections with powerful drums.

The band doesn’t stop there. “Tünderkert” includes even better violin melodies, and is probably the best folk metal song with violins that I have ever heard. The lead vocals here are pure magic, and the supporting choirs in the chorus don’t feel overwhelming, and add the right epic touch to another excellent song. “Napom, Fenyes Napom” convinces with harmonious acoustic guitar passages and joyful male and female vocals that give the song a comfortable but exciting campfire atmosphere. “Napisten Hava” presents us strong flute melodies and a guitar solo that would make Dragonforce’s Herman Li blush. The beautiful “Julianus Utja” includes great piano melodies, powerful guitar, and fine keyboard solos. The vocal performance of this song is also one of the record’s strongest, from my point of view. “Hunyadi Es Kapisztran Nandorfehervari Diadalarol (Saltarello)” includes a strong combination of male and female vocals, enchanting flute tones, and a cinematic feeling that could be drawn right out of a fantasy film. “Borivok Eneke” is probably the fastest song on the record, and invites to dance with its vivid violin sounds while female and male vocals collaborate very well together. “A Juhaszlegeny Balladaja” is probably the darkest and most epic song on the record. The record’s most metal orientated track also has a cinematic feeling and offers fewer folk elements than usual. The band keeps these for the acoustic outro that closes the circle, and reminds us of the opening introduction.

In the end, Dalriada offers us one of the strongest folk metal releases ever written, and includes only killer material. After a few spins, this record has already become one of my top ten records of the past three years. The song writing is diversified and inspired, but never too ambitious or progressive. The vocal performances are powerful and grounded, and I could listen to them for hours and hours. The riffs and solos on the record keep it metal, and the folk sections are performed with passion and harmonize very well with the rest. The only reason to not give this album a perfect rating is that I could see Dalriada doing even better in the future. Only time will tell. Fans of all aforementioned bands and the genre itself simply can’t get around this release right now. Discover and enjoy!

4.75 // 5

Darkestrah - Manas (2013)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Darkestrah is an epic black metal band with major Eastern European and sometimes Middle-Eastern folk influences. The band’s sound should sound familiar and pleasing to fans of the Finnish pagan metal outfit Moonsorrow, the Romanian progressive extreme metal band Negura Bunget or Ukrainian symphonic extreme metal band Nokturnal Mortum. What makes this band rather intriguing is that it hails from Kyrgyztan, but has now been relocated to Germany, and that the front singer is a woman. Usually, the band employs English vocals, but for their new conceptual output Manas (about a national hero from their home country), they chose to record in Russian. A performance in Kyrgyz would have been even more interesting, in my opinion.

The record itself is very atmospheric. Dark instrumental sections dominate this album, and employ mid-tempo or even slow passages instead of the usual blistering extreme metal moments. The band throws in some folk passages here and there as well. In the beginning, these parts sound a bit out of place, and don’t really fit in with the extreme metal rhythms but as the album goes on, the mixture starts to sound more homogeneous and natural. We get to hear traditional folk chants, throat singing, a jaw harp called a temir komuz, violins, and samples of nature sounds like falling rain or neighing horses. Tasteful but never overwhelming keyboard parts also appear every now and then to supplement the work. The diverse and always well-suited vocals vary from truly powerful blackened screams to hypnotizing clean parts. Singer Kriegtalith has a lot of talent, and it’s sad that we don’t hear her as much as usual on this rather instrumentally-oriented record.

In the end, this is the kind of record that requires some time and attention to grow on you. It has a very strong atmosphere and it’s impossible to take the songs out of their context to evaluate them one by one. The strong points here are the later, well-integrated folk sounds towards the end of the record, the versatile vocals, the bleak atmosphere, and the diversity of different approaches to the epic extreme metal genre. The negative items to mention include the clashing mixture of extreme metal and folk parts in the first song or two, the sometimes overlong instrumental passages, and the fact that the band doesn’t use its energizing speed and great vocalist enough here. Despite these flaws, I like this album from a band that I discovered by pure coincidence, and Manas has convinced me to listen to their work further.

3.25 // 5

Black Panther - Who We Are (2013)

Reviewed by Sebastian Kluth

Black Panther was one of the first hard rock and heavy metal bands born in the People’s Republic of China, and released its first, very underground record back in 1991. Many line-up changes and several more or less lackluster records followed. As was the case for many other Chinese rock and metal bands, they didn’t release anything new for quite a while, and one could have thought that they had already split up. Finally, the legendary band is back with a sixth and very energetic, hungry, and young lead vocalist. The veterans and the young panther present us with ten powerful anthems on an album which is courageously entitled Who We Are. This is a statement. Nine years after their last record, these legends are back and they feel stronger than ever.

The opening song “Shackles” is quite surprising. It features modern sound elements, dramatic orchestrations, an almost gothic atmosphere, unusual vocal effects, and even a narrative sample. It feels as if the band tried out new paths and wanted to appeal to a younger public audience with its modernity and variety. Despite these changes in style, the characteristic hard rock riffs, wild solos, and melodic vocals are all there. While the band’s colleagues from Tang Dynasty went through rather radical changes, Black Panther has kept the best of their past and added a fresh note to it. The opening song is the most experimental, though maybe one could also cite the closer “We”, that features a few electronic elements and some dramatic female background vocals. Otherwise, it’s a fresh but classic hard rock anthem featuring one of the record’s best vocal performances.

The other tracks should please traditional fans of the band. Who We Are offers high quality hard rock hymns such as the strong “Tidal” or the slightly blues driven and Occidentalized “Run”. We also get to hear more grounded and bass guitar driven bangers like “Tiger’s Mouth”. Of course, a few ballads such as the relaxed “A Person”, including a few organ sounds that remind me of American radio rock tracks of the seventies are on here as well. This Western sound can be explained by the fact that the record was produced by Jamii Szmadzinski and post-produced by Grammy award-winner Phil Nicolo.

It’s a relief to see that these legends are back in form, and the album produced by experts. The balance between old and new elements is solid, and the new singer is a gifted performer. With the opening and closing tracks, the record includes two extremely good songs, as well as eight good ones. This is not only a comeback to get some cash and media attention, but probably the band’s strongest release since their groundbreaking debut record. The new album is not incredible, but by far the best hard rock record of this year until now for me. Fans of AC/DC, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Rush should give this a fair try.

3.5 // 5