Usually in my 2^nd paragraph I go through a quick look into when the band started and all of that Jazz, but I won’t because it is Opeth; and if you know nothing about them then shame on you Mr./Mrs. Reader! Go hit the Internet and browse like crazy about them and learn some history. 

Now the tough part, reviewing the most anticipated album internationally that is set for release on 26 August 2014 through Roadrunner Records Pale Communion, so I’ll start off with what Mikael Åkerfeldt wants to do in this album: 

“I wanted to do something more melodic with this album, so there’s stronger vocal melodies and more melodies overall for this album.” 

And also, I wanted to mention Greg Kennelty of Metal Injection that got the chance and privilege to listening to the whole album even before the tracks got any titles  and he describes the album as:

“The missing link between “Damnation” and “Ghost Reveries” or if “Heritage” was written directly after Ghost Reveries without “Watershed” having ever existed.”

Now comes my turn, the album is a true successor in terms of musical presentation to its predecessor Heritage which caused a whole lot of controversy in the Metal community since it sounded more Progressive Rock than Progressive Metal! And let me remind you what Mikael said about that when he released that album:

“I was a bit discouraged with the contemporary metal scene, and I wanted to break away from it even more. I feel we’ve been on the outskirts of that scene for a couple of years. I just couldn’t see myself writing another album in the same vein as the last couple of records. Thankfully I listen to so many different kinds of music, and writing music has never been a problem. I’ve always seen Opeth as a band without boundaries. So if it’s good and everybody in the band likes it, it’s an Opeth record. In the end I sat down and wrote the music that I wanted to hear right now.”  

And I do feel that in the new album as well, along with what he wanted to do with the album is exactly what I’m hearing to right now while writing this review; Strong and amazing clean vocals, very melodic music with a whole lot of transitions that would just take you from one realm to another in a single track. The keyboards adds a lot into the album, that dark and heavy side that Opeth keeps in all of their works is manifested with the keyboards that uses all of that mostly are Rhodes pianos. Of course I can’t leave out the crazy yet amazing time signatures that keeps on shifting as well as the chords.

As for the lyrics, again Mikael proves that he’s a poet and not just a songwriter, the lyrical context is full of complex meanings that would explain the human emotional experience and the human condition with a hint of Anti-God in there which I honestly don’t like; but I tend to skip it most of the time and just enjoy the experience that I go through every time I listen to them.

Opeth is not just music, it’s an experience, and to the fans that got really upset with what the band is doing to their sound at the moment and somehow forcing the band to get back to their old way I say this to them: Enjoy the experience that the band is going through and what they are giving to us, you are witnessing evolution and change and somehow the natural progression of the bands music. I think this album is a solid statement that metal music could evolve and become so beautiful and majestic so just take your time with it and just let it grow on you and you will see beauty and grace even with the darkness that it holds in its undertones, it’s still manifested in their music with such grace that the only thing you could do is listen, appreciate and maybe thank them! 

Opeth’s Pale Communion came out August 26^th so make sure you get your copy of the album, and here is a track from their album for you to enjoy, ‘Eternal Rains Will Come’: 

Edited by: NJ Bakr

We’ve discussed in a previous article the origins of the band and the members of the band – both fictional and in reality – so in this article we’ll be talking more about the concept of the album, techniques that was used in the music and the lyrical theme. For the album concept, well to put it quite simply; it’s no more than a publicity stunt by Riot Games the creators of League of Legends, and it was a huge success!

So let us start with the music and how it sounds like; and I have to say that it sounds awesome! The blend of Power, Industrial and Djent metal is really creative and good to listen to, but the track that really caught my ears in how it’s played and the energy that’s in it is the very first track of the album ‘Lightbringer’, Jørn Lande did an amazing job with the vocals in this track that it sounded a lot like what would Rodney James Dio would do in a track like this. The rest of the tracks are pretty well made but wasn’t consistant with the energy that the first track had, maybe because of the genre shift between each track, but still fun and exciting to listen too.

The lyrical theme is – of course – pretty Power Metal since the lyrical content of Power Metal is all about Glory, Pride and Honor again aggretion and going into battle and all of that good stuff which totally reflects the object of the game of Leauge Of Legends, going into battles and only one wins the battle! And since I’ve mentioned the game, here is a little interesting fact about the titles of the tracks which is that each track was named after an item in the game, except for track number 6 ‘The Prophicy’ which is not an item in the game and not even a musical track, which I think got be safely dismissed from the whole album!

In the end, I think that the Smile and Ignite was very well made and is filled with positive messages of Glory, Honor and Pride and always fight back the oppressors, something that we need to have in our personal lives, or at least to have one hell of a battle while playing the game and kick some serious ass! The band was gracious enough to put their whole album on their official web site for free download for us to enjoy what they have made so make sure you get yourself a copy of it. 

Finally I leave you with their very first track to enjoy it as much as I did, ‘Lightbringer’ 

Edited by: NJ Bakr

For a quick background information about the band, Botanist was formed in 2009 in San Fransisco, USA. As I mentioned previously, it’s a one-man band project and the idea of the band as referred in the band’s Biography section in his official website:
“The songs of Botanist are told from the perspective of The Botanist, a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and its crimes against Nature as possible. In his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, which he calls the Verdant Realm, he surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world, and envisioning the destruction of man. There, seated upon his throne of Veltheimia, The Botanist awaits the time of humanity’s self-eradication, which will allow plants to make the Earth green once again.”

So, how did you get involved with metal music?

It was cool older kids that got me into metal. The first band I made a lasting connection was Iron Maiden, when I heard their Somewhere in Time album. I was still an Iron Maiden fan years later, but the only other kids who liked metal were into Poison, Motley Crue, Cinderella; all stuff that seemed wrong and silly to me. But I think they thought the same about what I was into!

Awesome, but Iron Maiden is pretty far away from black metal, how did black metal came into your life?

It was a transition form; let’s call it traditional metal, to progressively more extreme styles. I got into melodic doom next – like Candlemass, then some death metal – Vader and Bolt Thrower, and finally got into black metal when I heard Immortal. At the Heart of Winter was the album that did it, and looking back it always seems like an ideal and obvious gateway album for someone to get into black metal with. It’s got aspects of traditional metal to it, but the extremity and atmosphere of black metal. Plus Immortal is unquestionably one of the best, most important black metal bands of all time, and probably my personal favourite ever, so hearing an album made by a great band at a great time in its career was perfect timing for someone who wanted to get into black metal but wasn’t finding anything that clicked at the time.

Immortal is a pretty hardcore Black metal band, but when did the idea of Botanist came along. And what made you think that Black Metal would be the best choice?

I connect with the particular black metal aesthetic of the reverence of nature and the romanticizing of its primeval forces. To lose oneself in such real places and for its unfathomable magnitude to offer not only peace, but a humbling of the self, of each of our individual insignificances in relation to it, made channelling those themes through the medium of black metal an obvious choice for me.

Tell me more about your band structure, and why would you use a Hammered dulcimer and Drums only? Does it give more of an Organic sound to your music ?

As you may know, Botanist progressed from being a one-man project to being a live, touring band. We are five people on stage, with 2 dulcimers, a 12-string bass guitar, drums, and a harmonium. A bass hammered dulcimer was also custom made and has been used on some recordings to be published in the future, but at this time the logistics of touring with the instruments we have now are difficult enough. If the demand for Botanist reaches that of Therion‘s, for example, we will rethink making the bass dulcimer a regular component of the shows.
The hammered dulcimer was an obvious choice for Botanist as the instrument totally rules. I’m a drummer and playing such an instrument comes the most naturally to me, plus it has a delicate quality that evokes classical melody and harmony, of old traditions musical and cultural.

How long did it take you to learn the dulcimer and to keep in sync with playing the Drums?

Every musician has his or her weak and strong points. One of my particular strong points is being able to hit things in time, and particularly to do so while playing to a click track. I dedicated years of my development to practising exclusively to a click, and it paid off in a major way to recording records, particularly by myself. Thus, transferring that skill to another percussion-based instrument was highly intuitive.
And there you have it, your first black metal band with a genuine cause to speak for nature and to stop destroying it.

Kahtmayan is based in Tehran and it was formed in 2003, and the meaning of the name of the band according to the band’s history section in their official website is the 26th night of the Persian calendar. This album is only instrumental metal which would mean that this review will only focus on their musical technicality and execution, since the band claimed in their official website the following:

“The main idea behind Kahtmayan was creating music that was based upon eastern melodies and rhythms along with a dark magical atmosphere.”

And after reading a bit more about the band’s history, they mentioned that their line up got changed and so their genre of music changed since Thrash Metal is the main genre of metal in Iran, and that the government stood against having vocals in their band which lead to them taking the path of playing Instrumental Thrash Metal, which would show the struggle that metal music faces in the Persian lands.

When I first hit the play button on my music player , I wasn’t really impressed with the first 2 or 3 tracks , but then the album got really interesting with the way it was played and executed. To start off with in general on how the album sounded like, it was atmospheric with a lot of keyboard synths which was the interesting part of the whole album – it even reminded me a bit with the synth sounds that some of the main stream Iranian music that I saw on TV when I was bored and flicking through channels on my satellite receiver for some reason – and with a very slight hint of folk keys in there, but I’m not really sure about that part.

The technicality of the guitarist gained my respect since it sounded really professional and with a whole lot of taping techniques, hammering, and interesting licks and slides that for some reason sounded a bit like what would Joe Satriani do if he joined a Thrash Metal band. I also noticed that the band didn’t keep the album Thrashy all the way. That would indicate that they were more on the progressive side of things, the sounds went from atmospheric to dark to somewhat mystical, which I have to say that the keyboardist nailed it with his choices of synths.

The missing element in all of this – and I know it’s not the band’s fault – is the vocals and what would be their own lyrical theme, if that element was present in the band I would feel that it would bridge the gap in their music that I would say with all due respect is really good, but I feel that they made the music this way so when they have the chance of having a vocalist, they would have the music ready for him to rip out his vocal abilities onto them.

In conclusion, they are a skillful band that with better luck would be band to wait for net album to see how they would grow musically.

Here is one of their tracks that caught my attention from their album, ‘Irreversible’. Check below.

As always, we start off with information on the band; Chalice of Doom is a Jordanian band and their chosen subgenre of metal is melodic death/doom, with lyrical themes dealing with depression and dark romance. The band was formed in 2010 and released a demo and a single during the year. Their first full length album Immemorial Nightfall was released in 2011, and in 2013 Into Hypnagogia was unleashed upon the region.

Instantly, hook laden from the start to the finish, Into Hypnagogia is a complete stunner. There are some genuinely doomy musical elements; from atmospheric guitar effects to the ethereal keyboards. There is also the inclusion of a flute, which may have simply been an effect on the keyboard that adds to the overall atmosphere.

The melodies in this album are simply amazing as well. Vocals are as doomy as can possibly be and some great techniques are shown in the deep growls. It is all topped off by fantastic clean male and female vocals. You can definitely hear some Saturnus and Katatonia influences in their music, but I have noticed that the death metal parts are used as a ‘hint of salt’ to give more flavor to the music.

Lyrically, it is just a work of art. The construction of the lyrics showcases the thematic depth of the band; take ‘The Coin Fountain’ for example:

I am gone away
Free from these chains.
Your love imprisoned me
So many centuries.
I am gone away
And healed from the pain.
You sacrificed our dream
Along the darkened way.

It is so simple, yet it carries a meaningful weight. A bonus on this album is the inclusion of Arabic lyrics, which is a great way of reminding the listener of the bands roots, even if it is very minimal effort.

In conclusion, this album is a true work of art. This is a guaranteed listening pleasure – well structured, beautifully executed, and an all-around sensory tingling album – that should definitely be a part of every death/doom metal fans album collection.

Let’s start first with a quick band info. If you don’t know Chelsea Grin, they are an American band from Salt Lake City, Utah and their genre is Deathcore. Their first Self-Titled EP was released on July 27th 2008 and waiting for their upcoming album Ashes to Ashes to be released on July 8th this year. The band describe their new album as:

“This album has the same amount of material and Desolation of Eden, My Damnation and Evolve… COMBINED.”

Frontman, Alex Koehler, states that the lyrical content on Ashes to Ashes is much more positive than on the other records:

“It’s more about standing up for yourselves and not giving a f*** about anyone else’s opinions. Every song is going to be based on real life: alcoholism, drug abuse, violence and everyday bulls*** forced down our throats”.

Let’s see if their own comments about the album checks out, technical talk here about the music, their evolution from their earlier work to the newly anticipated album is noted since they do actually play differently and add more elements such as Djent, and actually I noticed that one of the tracks had some Black Metal in it, a whole lot of Time signature techniques from the drum lines, guitar playing and the Melodic portion that they mentioned in their comments that is also noticed in their tracks but not all of them. I would say the melodic side started off from track #7 till the end of the album, and what was before that was a harsher approach technique of playing. Vocals were between brutal and sneaking vocaling styles that were harmonized throughout the album along with some clean vocals that was in most of the choruses and not all of the tracks. Sad to say this, even though they are talented musicians and wanted to “show off” their technical muscles in this album, they kinda O.D’ed on whatever type of steroid they were popping to make those muscles ripped. In other words, they were not so lucky with most of their tracks with the mash up of techniques and they somehow “overdid” it.

Lyrical content of the album, as the band’s frontman, Alex Koehler, described -in simple words– standing against the world, being original, unique and dealing with a number of real life topics like abuse, alcoholism and others. And this is what Metal music is all about, discussing harsh and difficult topics that relates to life events in a magnificent array of vocabulary and utter poetry that makes you connect and appreciate the lyrical content of an album, but it wasn’t the case in this album since the way the lyrics are written is totally average and somewhat childish, and I’ll keep it at that.

In conclusion, they are a talented band that has enough room to grow even more with what they want to deliver and how to deliver it. So if you are a helpless teenager that needs to listen to something so angry to vent out your anger and frustration, then this album is a “must listen”, but if you are not then I suggest that you give it a pass.

Here is one of their tracks ‘Clockwork’ from their awaited album, Ashes to Ashes:

I’ll start off my review with what the artist is trying to deliver with his new album, which sums up with a flashback of the artist’s life struggles when he was a 15 year-old kid believing in the healing powers of music no matter what the situation is, which is exactly what the lyrics of the album delivers, as well as the rough riffs, 80’s rock ‘n’ roll atmosphere with a hint of the modern musical technology with the use of Synths that gave a great vibe to this album.

As far as musical technicality goes, describing his style as Indie Folk; I could hear the Indie part of his music with his riffs and drum work which sounds pretty simple but with interesting guitar effects and good synths to go with it, and good vocal abilities too. The “Folk” side of things is missing and kept looking for it within his tracks, but no where to be heard so I suggest that the artist should double check on that!

Now with the lyrics and what the artist tries to deliver from his latest album , I think it’s very well written and actually describes what would a normal 15 year-old kid would go through from the struggles of ones inner-self and trying to understand where he fits in this world and trying to figure out a way to get through all of this – which I would say we all went through when we were the same age – which manifested in track number 4 ‘Shut In’, it really touched my soul. The other part of the album which is fighting all of the struggles is relying on the mystical powers of music which again manifested in track number 6 ‘JM’ which stands for “Jason Monila”, an American musician which apparently was the artist’s inspiration and helper during rough times with his music.

In the end, my own conclusion of this album that it’s worth listening to when you feel like you need someone to help you out during rough times, or want to ponder or dwell into the past and how much you were and outcast and if you still are one and have a smile on your face that you are not alone, and that everything will be ok in the very end with the help of none other than…Music.

Here is one of his tracks, ‘Shut In’: