There is a strong whiff of movie soundtrack lurking in the background. Much of the symphonic element is straight out of your favourite Hammer horror. The vocals while death metal, do not complete obfuscate the lyrical content. If you pay attention you can actually hear them. Their have been rumblings about this band for several years now. It's great to see them deliver the goods for good ole’ Southern California.
Think of Sothis as the ultimate in antithesis to the normal Southern California rock lameness. There is no better way to rebel against all that is LA than this release. “Defiance” is not only a great track but a statement of intent. Euro-death metal from LA does not sound logical, but its pretty damn impressive.
Harmony: Chapter II: Aftermath
With a name like Harmony you would not expect tuneless death metal now would you? Well good news, this lot live up their name and fill their songs with lots of harmony. There is quite a bit of a Dream Theater feeling with this lot. Flowing keyboards in the background provide an wonderful melodic texture to the normal power metal noodlings. The band come from Sweden and have a lot of that Scandi-hard rock/metal sound about them. Lyrically, the band are very upbeat and positive in nature. One could almost say they are Christian in the loosest of terms.
As with many such releases from that part of the world there are guests on here, from Pain of Salvation who lends his bass to all tracks and Daniel Heiman of Lost Horizon fame. The band produce power metal from the more progressive end of the spectrum. Catchy, full of melody, and well delivered, this is great European metal. “Don’t Turn Away” sounds like it could have come from “Pull Me Under” era DT. If you enjoy positive but powerful metal with lots of melody then you could do far worse than this lot. It may have taken 5 years between albums but this is well worth the wait.
East of the Wall: Farmer’s Almanac
Goofy album title and called “alternative” by iTunes. Hrm, does not bode well one might think. However, one has to put aside one’s prejudices when doing this gig. I am so glad I did. It's anything but alternative. This is progressive metal done very well indeed, with a nice dash of blast beat drumming popping up at times. It's jazzy progressive with all sorts of things tossed in for good measure. Some pretty heavy stuff is going on in the track’ Century of Excellence.” However none of it sounds or feels superfluous to requirements. The songs, while viable on their own, combine together to provide a flowing vibe to the album.
Article comments
1 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
I am sure there will be blowback from my review of Metallica.
Actually, Marty, it was pleasant to read a review of the new Metallica that was pretty damn accurate.[Head & heart in the right place]You hit the nail right on the head... None of this material really grabs me.
These guys are not quite back to form yet. Once they completely ditch their 90's material, practice on their instruments & focus on Thrash, their next release should be one hell of a punch. Oh.. and Kirk needs to get rid of that freakin wah-wah pedal!!
Thanks for the heads up on East of Wall - It's real hard nowadays to release a progressive album without all the references to Dream Theater & Opeth(save for the new Cynic which will be f*cking awesome) but these guys keep it interesting & a bit original. The fact that it is an instrumental release is great!
2 - Chris Beaumont
Great stuff, as always, Marty!
Guppy, got to agree, some one needs to take that wah wah away from Kirk. Nothing like a metal tune with a hard rock solo in the middle.
Looking forward to Cynic. Have a promo coming soon, should be an interesting introduction.
3 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Chris..You lucky bastich! The demo I heard that had 2 new songs was damn good & your introduction is coming at a great time. Focus was a killer CD but the new stuff sounds a bit more progressive & the production is excellent.
The new guitarist/vocalist(growling),Tymon Kruidenier, is freakin awesome... I'm so psyched to get my hands on it. I'm gonna go out on a limb here: I think this album will be better than the new Opeth.