Mindly Rotten - Proliferation Of Disaster

Brutal Death Metal is one tough fucker to get into. It's like if music was taken to every single limit possible for the result to still be musical. And that is not only what makes it interesting, but also makes it quite a hit-or-miss affair. There definitely is a formula to it, but it's so specific that one has to disfigure it completely so as to have music that is interesting. Which means that, while there might be some household names in the genre, such as Suffocation or Nile, the best that most bands might hope for is one fantastic album, where all the elements just come together, and a batch of unremarkable releases. And, right off the bat, everything about Proliferation of Disaster seemed to scream that Mindly Rotten had taken the wrongest turn among a large array of wrong turns somewhere along the way.

First of all, their debut, The Most Exquisite Agonies, was among the best albums of the genre because of the way it twisted it into a unique, conceptual listen, and making anything in a similar vein would be pointless. Second, this sophomore is from 2011, meaning that it took a suspicious 6 years to release, usually not a very good sign in Death Metal. Third, the band moved from their original headquarters in Colombia to Armenia, to sign to Russian label Coyote. Fourth, the new logo is more easily readable, and the album cover seems more fitting for a generic Deathcore album, unlike the badly drawn yet ominous one from their former record. Top that off with an intro consisting of unspectacular movie samples and you've got yourself a recipe for losing everyone's interest in the album. A shame really, since the "music" part of the album is pretty phenomenal.

This time around, Mindly Rotten have made the somewhat unorthodox move of leaving behind the "incomprehensibility" factor and worked on the "songwriting" and the "riffs" aspect, meanwhile leaving their personal touch to them. And the result is strange, to say the least. The songs here rely strongly on the use of huge contrasts, to create a form of Brutal Death Metal that is at the same time confusing and ultra-technical, but incredibly catchy as well. And what's more, they've managed to make some of the most violent music imaginable with the use of riffs cheerful enough to feature in DragonForce songs. And despite the chaotic nature of the songs, with some patience, one can easily capture the intricate dynamics present in each song. One obvious example of this is "Death's Fatal Flow", which also has the characteristic of coming to a climactic riff halfway through the song and becoming even more intense after that.

Proliferation Of Disaster starts out more restrained and logical, and becomes progressively more erratic and insane, intensifying itself until "Catastrophic Hecatomb (Collosal Destruction)". "Abysmal Delirium (Instrumental Reverie)" follows, with an evidently cheerful and congratulatory undertone, which is a perfectly satisfying ending to an album that leaves you feeling like you had just wrestled a missile-breathing gorillasaurus and won. The album ends with a new version of a song from their previous one, like as though the band wanted you to know how much they have evolved. And I have to say that it is quite a lot. This release may not be as textural or atmospheric or subtle as the debut, but it's definitely weirder, better written, and, well, better. They have improved on the unimprovable. You know those albums that every other album within a genre seems to be compared to? Well, this may one day become one of those.

Standout tracks:

Reign of Confussion (Unpredictable Perturbation)
Outside Forces (Shall Fragmented Beings)
Death's Fatal Flow
Engmatic Hallucinations (At the Edge of Chaos)

Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

I guess we all have a love-hate relationship with money. Yeah, there is the saying that money is the root of all evil, and probably if it weren't for the lust for money, Mr.Burns-in-human-form wouldn't have sued you for 250K€ that time he broke your window with a brick and got cut by a piece of glass. But on the other hand, holding some cash can apparently relieve pain, and it helps people convince other people to do things for them. Also, there are things that just work better if you throw a bunch of money at them, including some types of music. There seem to be these particular kinds of music that are, in essence, sort of okay-ish, really nothing special. They'll usually be easy to digest and catchy, sort of enjoyable, sort of unremarkable. But then you make all the instruments have an incredibly perfect sound, and the vanilla music becomes majestically incredible. Still easy to digest and catchy, but now every note seems like it is gently caressing your limbic system whilst offering it cookies, and everything just seems awesome and original and perfectly fitting.

And I have nothing against that way of making music. After all, I do like listening to things that are enjoyable. The approach may at times end up sounding like a bit of an insult to one's intelligence, but it's one of those insults that you awkwardly laugh at and pretend not to notice. Twilight of The Thunder God, though, takes this approach to its very limits. This being the only Amon Amarth album I have ever listened to, I cannot know for sure, but I take that these guys have found a winning formula and stuck to it. The 10 songs all blatantly use some variation of the classic/tired "Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Interlude-Chorus" structure that has consistently attacked music, and inspiration is rationed throughout them like if there were a global shortage of it. As for the sound itself, it's simple, no-bullshit, balls-to-the-wall, poppy Melodic Death Metal with the slightest tinge of atmosphere. To my surprise, it works. The simple and pretty standard guitar melodies are much more powerful than they are cheesy, and somehow I had no problems with the inbredly simplistic drumming or any of the sillier vocal passages (except maybe the outro on "The Hero". We got it, you're an evil man, now shut up.). And unlike most music I enjoy, I didn't need a lie down and something to stop the headache once I finished the album. In fact, I listened to it twice in a row without a hitch.

I wonder, though, if TotTG would have received the acclaim it has were it by some other band. I mean, it's an album that has no reason to exist, other than to include nicely written music magically turned awesome through the power of sound engineering. Other than the fact that it's fun and nice to listen to, it has no real redeeming features. It's easy to distinguish the songs, but none of them try to stand out in any way. The sound throughout this release does progress ever so slightly, but even that seems to fit safely within the template of "first bunch is heavier, second bunch is more introspective, last bunch is more epic and begins to be boring". I usually can't understand the people who rate albums track by track (okay, I did it ONCE, goddammit), but it seems pretty appropriate on this one.

There are so many things that you can do that don't include listening to Twilight of the Thunder God, like playing frisbee, eating a yogurt, reading a book, listening to inventive music... But then again, you can also listen to Twilight of the Thunder God. It's pretty good for what it is.

Standout tracks:

Twilight of the Thunder God
Where Is Your God?
Varyags of Miklagaard
Embrace of the Endless Ocean

Battles - Mirrored

(See post date)

Not too long ago, I noticed that the “indie” movement had suddenly exploded. Without warning, everyone, no matter what sex, chose to start looking like Gordon Freeman in a sweater and decided to start using the camera their grandma had thrown away, because it was too rusty and depressing, to make “warm” photos to post on Facebook. Everyone was selling their iPod to buy Beatles LPs, and everywhere people only talked of Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire whilst making romanticist posts on Tumblr that managed to simultaneously sound insightful and naive. Grass went from poisonous green to unhealthy greenish-yellow. Skin went from spray-tanned orange to “radioactive meltdown” dirty-yellow. Glasses and facial hair expanded and lo-fi became all the rage. I think I ought to mention smoking pipe somewhere as well...

I myself didn't follow the movement much, and that applied to the indie music accordingly, as I furiously, relentlessly and tirelessly didn't follow the movement much, meaning that I know as much about it as Pluto knows about still being considered a planet (it probably never knew anyway, as planets tend to be pretty dumb, but I digress). Still, from what I do know about it, and I cannot stress enough that it's very little, the music seems to defend the notion of sounding very pleasant and pretty much ignoring most other things. Battles, on the other hand, fuse this notion with the intricacy and rhythmic candy of jazz and math rock as well as some experimental leanings to create a form of music that I can relate to much better than to any of those genres alone.

The tracks usually revolve around a few core ideas, adding and subtracting layers as they trod through their track length, and these layers are one of the main things Battles have going for them on this debut. The layers make some of the most fun and captivating arrangements I've heard yet, simultaneously spastic and restrained, bombarding you with information without ever becoming confusing, every musician providing space for the others to be creative but without ever turning into a mess. And on top of that, the occasional and incredible vocals, which make the second main thing Battles have going for them on this debut. The way the vocals are alternately controlling and being controlled of/by the surrounding music. And the sound of the vocals themselves is nothing short of brilliant. Their unstable nature, the way they randomly change in pitch, like if Tyondai Braxton had a Helium canister and a valve inside his lungs.

As for progression, the songs are constructed in a "building blocks" fashion, and that begins to really hurt the album toward the latter half. I'm not saying, though, that the material presented on the second half is in any way worse than the material on the first in terms of quality. It's just that the lack of dynamics that originates from the songwriting approach means that there is too little flow, meaning that as the songs become more introspective (yeah, right) and less energetic, the album becomes more tiring and seems to start falling apart. The core ideas are still there, though, and some of these will definitely stay with the listener forever, such as the last 3 minutes of "Rainbow", or the gigantic yet compressed soundscape on "Race : Out", and, like I said, they are what makes the album great.

The same things that could have ended up ruining Mirrored are what make me leave indie music as a last resort. The albums of the style that I have so far listened to are musical, but lacked anything that would make the music interesting on an intellectual level. It's like instead of containing songs, they contain "musical experiences", something to consume and discard and reconsume. For some moments in the album length it really seemed like Battles were falling into that trap too, but they have managed to escape the temptation, and the resulting work is a must hear for anyone who hasn't heard it yet.

Standout tracks:

Atlas
Ddiamondd
Leyendecker
Rainbow
Race : Out

Cranial Incisored - Rebuild:The Unfinished Interpretation Of Irrational Behavior

(09 Jul 2011)

It's really irritating from time to time to mainly enjoy experimental, extreme music, whilst having a small army of fucks that I don't give about more mainstream music. It was to be expected that as I listen to more music, talking about the topic would become easier over time. Unfortunately, it seems to be the other way around. I end up feeling like an asshole whenever I have to include bands like Mindly Rotten or Crimson Massacre just to get a point across and people start saying "yeah" in a "What the hell are you talking about?" kind of way. A simple solution would obviously be to develop a taste for Amon Amarth and Lamb of God, to start going crazy over everything Sumerian Records ever craps out and, of course, start giving a shit about Metal Hammer. On the other hand, though, I can continue to drown my suffering with awesome music instead. As long as stuff like Rebuild:The Unfinished Interpretation of Irrational Behavior is made, I'll stick to the latter option.

Until after a bunch of listens, this debut sounds very amateurish. There is nothing to remember after a casual listen and what is immediately noticeable sounds pretty tasteless and out of place at first. It's just so everywhere at the same time and incoherent and confusing that while one has to appreciate the musicianship, it's like they're shoving all that musicianship at once up your left nostril. Actually, this brings up a very common aspect among the less accessible music, which is the way that what keeps a listener away from the music at first is what makes the listener come back for more afterwards.

For some reason, the listener will go back to be ear-raped again, and again, and again, and this insistence will pay off. The songs will start making sense (sort of), the memorable parts will start to be audible, and one will start to be able to understand what each part is supposed to be. The samples and interludes will still sound dated, but when compared to the timelessness of the sonic assault these guys make, they just had to sound that way for one not to lose their sanity. As for the general sound Cranial Incisored present here, if you like Behold... the Arctopus but wish they were a little less coherent and think they need a yelping dog with throat cancer doing vocals (which makes it practically perfect for me), this is for you.

I could say that I wish Rebuild:The Unfinished Interpretation of Irrational Behavior were more well-known, or that it's massively underrated, but I believe I would be lying. This is the kind of music where enjoyment comes from understanding and learning, and not from the experience itself. The listener has to cooperate. It requires patience and perseverance, rendering it unfit for the casual audiophile or the unprepared. The album holds such a fragile balance of experimentation and quality that it's easy for one to not even notice the "quality" part. Therefore, this is a release that should be best kept obscure for the bold music explorer to discover and enjoy.

Standout tracks

Artificial Intelligence
Nervousness
Psychoanalysis Therapy of Sybil Isabel Dorsett
Unexplored Mind Content
Experimental Thoughts As Shocker Therapy

Ernula x Culian - here's something for none of us

(05 Jul 2011)

Here's something I was not expecting... Cheap beginning joke aside, I really wasn't expecting much from this album. Well, I had no idea what to expect, really. I have virtually no experience in electronic music beyond some Won James Won, some Aphex Twin and a bit of Pendulum. What I was least expecting, though, was to enjoy the album. In other words, I was expecting to listen to some absolute crap. Bizarre crap, but crap nevertheless. After listening to it a few times, I have a new esteem for the musicians on RYM.

The album starts out with an imperfect, uncertain, yet also determined sounding voice sample. Soon, we are also introduced to a simple drum beat that eventually begins to fit the sample, which successfully introduces the listener to the sound that the album will be offering, and this sound and the way it interacts with the music is what makes the album truly interesting. For most of its length, here's something for none of us, with its minimalistic and unrefined instrumentation provides a feeling like the music is creating itself rather than a creator of the music existing. If this album had good production values or a "full" sound, the songs just wouldn't work. As it is, though, it really sets the right atmosphere for the songs.

Still I feel this could have been much better. The album seems to be divided in two main parts: the first four songs, and the last three. Then, they are connected by "glitchout", which ends up not really connecting the halves, but making the album fall apart a little. The first four songs are like a creation of music out of chaos and void, eventually reaching a point of self destruction, leaving rest of the album with a desolate atmosphere. Therefore, "glitchout", to me, seems a little out of place, and really damages the flow of the album.

Otherwise, the strange idea of creation evoked by "ナナナ塊魂リミックス" and "ability of the selfish", the idea of destruction on "kuchi ya seieki karera no me ni wa watashi wa seikō no mesu inu" and "here's a 10 second song sampling some shitty anime you've probably never seen", and the way "beach" evokes an atmosphere of absolute desolation, abandonment and isolation, only emphasized by the contrasting "hypnotic" and the accentuating "limbo", make it an album definitely worth listening, maybe not for its musical ideas, but for the atmosphere the music implements. This will definitely be in my iPod for some time.

Standout tracks:

ナナナ塊魂リミックス
ability of the selfish
beach

Fleshgod Apocalypse - Oracles

(30 Jun 2011)

Wow... This album is sort of like finding out Santa doesn't exist, only three times worse. It's kind of heartbreaking to realize simultaneously that three things are not what they seem. First, it's my beloved Italian metal scene. Second, it's my beloved Candlelight. Third, it's my semi-beloved Willowtip. I thought that if one were to join the three, the result would be both original and professional. Sadly, this is possibly the most playing-safest Death Metal album I've ever heard, something to use as reference for studying the gimmicks and clichés of later noughties DM.

Fleshgod Apocalypse seem to have a pretty defined style, in which they mix influences of Suffocation, The Black Dahlia Murder and Necrophagist with some classical leanings, meanwhile succeeding in removing anything that made any of the former actually worth listening. The very deathcore sounding arppeggioed riffs and the "We're fucking tr00, no seriously" attitude become very annoying after the third track, and once they get to the classical lead with an "evilll" scale on "Requiem in Si Minore", my teeth begin to hurt from grinding so much. Even the song structures sound toned down so you can take in everything and headbang along to the fabricated songs. Despite being the best parts of the album, the classical interludes seem like they've merely been added to further cement the "No really, we're tr00" statement.

Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional "headbanging for the sake of headbanging" track as much as the other guy, and when employed well, it's really effective. Some riffs in some of the tracks are really catchy and well-executed, if not particularly creative. But as a whole this is just unmemorable in every single way. It has no creativity, no atmosphere, no actual texture and no fun at all. As a final insult, the album is plagued with one of the most piercing-in-a-bad-way guitar tones, drums that have stolen all the reverb from everything else in the record and possibly the most standard-sounding vocalist I've ever heard.

Oracles sounds like some musicians saw how poppy and well-established Death Metal acts are getting lauded and revered by the kids and seeing this decided to get a piece of that cake, by making the loudest, most poppiest, most easiest Technical Death Metal they could think of. If that was what they were trying to do, have they succeeded? Definitely. They even got signed to Nuclear Blast as proof of their success. On the other hand, I probably like St. Anger more than this.


Standout tracks:

Sophistic Demise
intro for "Embodied Deception"

King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

(23 Jun 2011)

Here's something I noticed. The more I listen to music, the more I wonder what everyone sees in The Velvet Underground & Nico that is so good. I'm not denying that it is a good album, but am I missing out on something important in the album for it to be treated like it had invented music or something? To me it sounds really dated and silly, a mush of close-to-genius and embarrassingly bad. Can music have evolved so much in two years for In The Court Of The Crimson King to still hold all of its charm and magic today while nowadays The Velvet Underground & Nico holds all of the charm and magic of a particularly beautiful screwdriver?

From the first bang of raw 1969 production on "21st Century Schizoid Man" to the final weirdness in "The Court Of The Crimson King" the album manages to maintain something that The Velvet Underground's debut greatly lacked, and that is consistency. You can tell these guys know what they're doing, and that they've put some work into making this as good as it can get. Everything from the simple yet dynamic structures, to the individual instruments, to the interplay between them sound like they were crafted to squeeze as much awesomeness as they could into each song. And even from an empty sounding production, they somehow managed to squeeze a strange, stringy atmosphere, and they somehow managed to make some parts of the album sound definitely epic. And the parts of the songs, the soundscapes, the layers, the way they managed to make simple acoustic guitar riffs magnificent, the way the vocals take at the same time the role of foreground and background. It all makes for a great listening experience and an increasingly large wall of text.

So, in short, within its own and its time's boundaries, "In The Court of The Crimson King" can be considered perfect. I can end this review at that. Bye now!


Oh, wait! I forgot the standout tracks.

Standout tracks:

21st Century Schizoid Man
I Talk to the Wind
The Court of the Crimson King


There. Bye now!











*grunt* You know what the problem with this album is? It's that it's easy on you. You listen to it once and by the end of the album you've already got quite a clear idea of how every song goes. It's just all too pleasant and easy to listen to. There's no need to "dismantle" or "understand" the songs. It's all there. The only thing that makes this concoction hold any sort of mystique to it is the dirty production. There are moments of musical brilliance, the album's made of moments of musical brilliance, but it's just stuck in this cage of a Rock Sound. In that aspect, I wish this album were more like The Velvet Underground & Nico. It just sounds too professional. I wish it could be more youthful, more daring, more insecure. It just lacks a bit of personality. Everything else is perfect, I just don't feel like listening to it all that often.