firewheelbombfire – Square Peg In A Square Hole

I guess we often say releases capture the imagination but in the case of Square Peg In A Square Hole from firewheelbombfire it captures, inspires, ignites, and frames a myriad of thoughts, ideas, and imagery bred by its compelling body. An album which offers up a new experience with every listen, it can play as a continuous journey through a post-apocalyptic like world or as individual tales through equally traumatic landscapes whether physically or mentally. It is a thoroughly intriguing piece of work which thrills and incites across its expressive narrative and stirring imagination. It is not a flawless release and admittedly at rare times things fail to ignite the strongest connection but it is a release which tells and triggers a wealth of stories and feelings, and ultimately is a triumph.

Firewheelbombfire is the solo project of Cardiff-based producer Matt Strangis, a man already renowned for his production work in the realm of drum and bass under the name Billy Gone Bad. His new guise and sound sees Strangis bringing numerous rock and metal essences and flavours into a riveting merger with uncomfortable and impacting ambiences. Also within the canvas the album offers are a plethora of as the bio say ‘other noise-enabling bits and pieces found around the home (kitchen utensils / plates / cats).’ It all makes for an organic and startling experience, an encounter which would not be out of place as a voice to the blackest noir drenched or starkest futuristic or social cinematic endeavours. Completely DIY on a non –existent budget, being home-recorded in the exact chronological order of the track-listing, and conceived from a pro-album / anti-single perspective, the album is an incendiary pleasure for the sense and imagination.

The album opens with Doggone, the track emerging from a distant shadow with the air and energy of a tube train with intensity brewing to an impending climax but then instantly dropping off into a melodic guitar crafted caress. With vocal nudges making a claim alongside the bass, their whispers as if spawn through a vacuum hose, the track shimmers and resonates like an ever revolving wheel of textures and dimensions,  a clarity eluding the grasp until a time of its choosing when the guitar entwines the ear with a deliciously grooved irritant to its touch and mesmeric call. It is a restrained but dramatic start, the impressive first of a flow of tracks provoking the mind and its invention.

The following Get Out Much? is a shadowed fuelled temptation, the low slung restrained vocal tones and the equally throaty bass enticement veined by vibrant rhythms for a hypnotic conspiracy. The breath of the track is dark and knowing; its deceptive secrets left to be discovered though once it eventually opens up its doors for a surge of stoner lined guitar grooves and energised fiery vocals, the heart is there to be explored. Infectious from numerous angles and premises, the song takes the great start to another level with ease and anthemic almost primal seduction.

The melancholic feel of Francis opens up yet another avenue of emotion and thought, its desolate and gloomy air like a reflection of a long past loss or regret. Its touch is that of a colourless memory, a black and white photograph of remembrance, and deeply emotive. Though the piece does not come close to the passion igniting heights of its predecessors its hold and ability to spark images and personal thoughts is stunning.

The next tracks again offer new adventures within the landscape being investigated, the contagious rock dance of Carry on Carrie a melodic siren especially with the speeding through a tunnel like hypnotism across its building climax, whilst both Telephone Voice (On / Off) and Trodite with their undefined but in many ways sinisterly presences are like aural magic eye artwork, though each twist and needed warped look into their colourful and bleeding depths, a scenario emerges with a new guise to explore each and every time.

The hungry intimidating corridors and hidden dangers of Pissing Guilt is a like a perpetual nightmare, its persistently looming dark embrace and inescapable menacing ambience full of seemingly vocal reassurance yet prowled by a sonic and rhythmic provocation to steer only uncertainly around the light within. Imagine yourself lost in a maze of perpetual clutching shadows, the walls of blackened streets either in reality or the mind stalking and herding emotions into a corner for an everlasting provocation and the song makes for the perfect  soundtrack.

Polypoly and September lead the listener back to safer ground though both again have their shadows to peer over proceedings. The infectious smouldering entrancement of the second of the pair is an irresistible lead into the closing It Ran And Ran And Ran, and its rapacious enterprise. The heaviest predator of the album, the song is a confrontation of stoner and industrial spiced doom metal like stalking, the bass and rhythms slowly watching and encroaching closer on their prey as the intensity and pace of the track builds to leap with a pack like mentality across all its elements upon the senses. It is an excellent finish to an equally impressive album.

It is hard to really compare the album and its sound to another though I am sure many will maybe rightly use Trent Reznor as a reference, but another name does rear its head in that of Colin Newman (Wire), not so much in sound maybe but presence and atmosphere. Square Peg In A Square Hole is a great album for all who like to listen, think, and imagine with their music and firewheelbombfire a project destined to impress again and again.

https://www.facebook.com/firewheelbombfire

8.5/10

RingMaster 02/05/2013

 

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Chosen – Resolution

    Resolution is one of this year’s most generous gifts to extreme and experimental metal, such the quality and stature of the debut album from Irish metallers Chosen. The release is sensational, a primal predator of scintillating imagination and exhaustingly pleasing invention. Having missed out on their earlier EPs, this is an introduction to the site which has left us open mouthed in awe and drooling in passion at the immense violation of extreme excellence.

Cast as for fans of the likes of Nevermore, Gojira, Cynic, and Death, the album shows the band pulls far beyond limitations with their sound and surely anyone with an adventure for stylish and senses stretching hunger in their music will find a feast with Resolution. Formed in 2005 by Paul Shields (vocals/guitars) and David McCann (drums/percussion) as teenagers, Chosen crafted a strong fanbase for their uniquely sculpted and intrusive sound with the metal community in their homeland. Releasing a number of independent and well-received demos as well as acclaimed live shows around Ireland, the band then went through a number of line-ups changes. In 2008 the founding pair relocated to Vancouver for a successful year which included a Canada-wide tour, as well as playing a unique tribute gig to the late Chuck Schuldiner, before returning home in 2009 to record their debut album. On their return the band was reduced to just the pair as members quit which led to the project taking an undefined hiatus.

Shields and McCann eventually came together to move forward by pushing on with the recording of the album and entered the studio with producer Alwyn Walker to lay down the frame for the release whilst also looking for other musicians to bring in. Though successful on both counts the band was reduced to just the pair again, so the decision was made to complete the album just by themselves with Walker, Shields taking over vocal and bass duties too. From that journey what has emerged is an album which explores and ignites the senses and imagination for a furnace of blistering and uncompromising invention, a release which is like a sonic puppeteer leading thoughts and passions on a collision of riveting ingenuity, technical mastery, and unbridled confrontation.

The release opens on a jungle of rhythms from McCann, their lure irresistible as the guitar of Shields offers a veil of mystique to the start of Engines Of Belief. It is mere breaths lengths of time before the track ravages the ear with tumultuous rhythms and equally demanding riffs whilst further guitar manipulation skirts the senses and twists their thoughts with increasingly devilish designs. The harsh guttural squalls ride the intensity with gusto and venom whilst the clean vocals support their weight with magnetism as potent as the invention now rife within the fury of a track. It is a staggering start which claws at and gnaws upon the synapses with unexpected brilliance, a colossal fire of enterprise brought through greedy brutality.

Could the release from such a start prevent an antic-climax steeping forward next was the first thought but Defective Prospection and The Narcissism Epidemic both took no time in making the wonderment  moot such their oppressive and inventive confrontations. Certainly the first of the pair does not find the same plateau of brilliance as its predecessor but still delivers an expanse of provocative investigation whilst the second song from its delicious acoustic lined welcome and emotive ambience steps into a maelstrom of ferocious inventive charges and a scintillating merger of melodic beauty and carnal savagery. It is a brilliant track rivalling the starter and again sending creative shock waves across thoughts and sparking thick ardour for it and the album.

The outstanding Diminishment with its mesmeric melodic peace veined by raptorial rhythmic persistence and bestial admonishment of the senses exchanging and entwining their pure hearts, and the equally thrilling Instinct with its Meshuggah spiced rugged textures and rhythmic spite, both sear new heights upon passions and the release whilst Asch’s Paradigm is a song which initially inspires a bedlam bred sinister air before evolving into a tempest of corrosive beauty and seductive severity. The second of the three is a psyche twisted progressive intrigue with imagination to its cryptic fascination and a destructive onslaught vocally and musically unleashed whilst Asch’s Paradigm is a malevolent tight wrap of blood boiling intensity persuaded to share its time with melodic elegance and wanton temptation.

The closing pair of Metaphysical Contradiction and The Departure Lounge seals the branding deal upon the heart with in the case of the first a conflict of balance disrupting sonic dissidence and the closer through an irresistible initial death metal ravishing with djent punctuation moving on to open up arms of melodic acidity and warmth. As it began and admittedly continued through every moment, Resolution ends on the loftiest pinnacles. The album is pure ingenuity and raging inventive passion to inspire the same potency in the reactions and emotions of the listener. Chosen is a tsunami waiting to happen for European metal and their album not only one of the very best this year but of the past decade, and there is no reason to miss out either as the self-released album is available as a Name your own Price download and also in a Deluxe Special Edition or a Collector’s Edition CD.

www.chosenmetal.bandcamp.com

www.chosen.ie

10/10

RingMaster 23/04/2013

 

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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The Moth Gatherer – A Bright Celestial Light

    A Bright Celestial Light is one of those releases which dares you to offer a description of or to place a tag on its creative tempest then laughs in your face as only a colossal lists of adjectives and genre references could just about do it justice. A perpetually evolving debut from Swedish experimentalists The Moth Gatherer, which takes on a new and refreshing aspect which each and every re-engagement with its stunning presence, the album is a quite incredible and ever twisting imaginative fire which inspires and consumes the passion let alone thoughts for a thrilling, often openly aggressive, and mesmeric experience.

Consisting of Alex Stjernfeldt and Victor Wegeborn, the band employs a maelstrom of flavours to its unique inventiveness, from metal and caustic rock, sludge and doom, to progressive and ambient and much, much more. The band and new album leaves the term unpredictable a slowly reacting, missing the target call on their persistently surprising and shifting ingenuity. Across its quintet of towering tracks the band never over complicates anything, progressive it surely is but with a uncluttered invention and understanding to the whirling imagination at work, it incites and lures in the listener without leaving them bewildered or shell shocked by the continually moving imagination. To share a comment Stjernfeldt made about the album, he said “We just want our music to be an emotional explosion“. Something the pair succeeds in doing with startling effect and craft. He went on to say “A lot of the songs is about death, missing people you loved who have passed away and losing hope in mankind. We want the music to make you feel like you can move mountains with it. I wish for that when people hear our music, they start to dream away.” Again to agree with him the band evokes thoughts and emotions with ease and to immerse within its descriptive depths an easy and irresistible lure.

Released through Agonia Records, the Karl Daniel Liden mastered album which also has a guest appearance from Member 001 of The Konsortium, begins its persuasion with The Water That We All Come To Need. The song slowly emerges from a gentle ambience and brewing atmosphere with singular guitar strokes and a dawning rich breath soon joined by inviting beats. It is a part primal wholly organic start which works on and with the inner rhythms of the listener to pull them into the exploding caustic ravage soon to follow. The vocals graze with scathing aggression upon a scene setting feel before the track quicksteps through a sonic blaze of shifting tempos and incendiary intensity veined with sharp acidic melodies and cutting barbed aural hooks. To describe the whole expanse of the song, or any other, would need a full individual review but leaving plenty to creep up and leap upon your senses let us just say the track winds around the senses and passions with riveting and dazzling enterprise. Its darkness is never far from the melodic light, always pressing and intimidating its temptation, whilst the bright sonic entrapment which permeates the different stretches of the soundscape is a constant temper to the at times brutal shadows.

     The following Intervention has a hardened rawer touch to its squalling tones whilst the vocals bring an urgent, maybe needy caress to the fire. Again shifts into melodic elegance across evocative and richly suggestive smouldering escapes are emotionally charged and aurally descriptive yet seamless in their emergence from and as persuasive leads into harsher corrosive and equally compelling sonic and predatory structures. The exceptional piece makes way for the highlight of the album, the brilliant A Road Of Gravel And Skulls, a track which rumbles along and crumbles defences with its cascade of punkish attitude, electro brilliance, ravaging extreme metal and hardcore abrasions plus so much more. The song is a demanding and richly rewarding excuse to visit thoughts and emotions, to let them find their own unique questions and visions, but most of all it is a creatively inspiring and passion sparking fury of invention and innovative imagination.

With The Womb, The Woe, The Woman and its hooked, grooved, and wonderfully melancholic beauty, not forgetting the exceptional snarl of the bass to add further provocation and the closing A Falling Deity, a song which is a free fall of intensive emotive suggestion and impacting scarring yet refreshing ambience, the album engrains itself further into the heart and thoughts. We have not done the album justice with our words, not sure anyone could, but with only the exhausting length of some tracks as a contrived niggle just to be mischievous, A Bright Celestial Light is a stunning release which certainly fans of the likes of Neurosis, Pelican, Breach, and Cult of Luna will greedily devour whilst it has plenty for all adventurous metal and rock hearts. The Moth Gatherer is going to be a major force ark our words.

http://www.themothgatherer.com

9/10

RingMaster 18/04/2013

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Obsidian Kingdom: Mantiis

    It has to be said that when reading the introductory email from Spanish band Obsidian Kingdom and seeing them describe their debut album Mantiis as ‘a conceptual rock opera’ a keen shudder went from shoulder to shoulder and head to toe, though the following  ‘that flows through different genres’ certainly intrigued. So after admittedly putting it off longer than we would have wished a plunge into its depths was made followed by a good kicking of oneself for not doing it sooner. Mantiis is exceptional, its sounds and formation far exceeding and different to expectations, and a release which has yet to escape a daily investigation.

The album is certainly a concept album though the rock opera tag does diminish its lure and misguide. Consisting of one piece of song split into fourteen seamlessly connecting pieces, Mantiis is magnetic to thoughts and compelling to the senses, its construction impressive and innovative. The tracks do work strongly as individual encounters but to reap the biggest rewards from the release and own thoughts, absorbing it in one fluid listen is essential. The album also as mentioned evolves through multiple styles and genres but with coherent and seamless transitions which swoop upon the ear with unannounced mastery and imagination. Obsidian Kingdom is described as a post-metal band with rich veins of progressive rock and experimental invention but as the album reveals even that expansive description is limiting to the stunning creativity going on. Consisting of Rider G Omega (guitars and vocals), Prozoid Zeta JSI (guitars), Zer0 Æmeour Íggdrasil (keys and vocals), Fleast Race O’Uden (bass), and Ojete Mordaza II (drums), the Barcelona based band has built on and evolved from their previous EPs, Matter of 2007and 3:11 of 2010, to create their most ambitious project yet with the Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia) mastered Mantiis.

The release opens with the chilled ambience of Not Yet Five, its singular breath alone within a brewing rasping intensity. As the bass carves its melancholic presence within the haunting keys and cold ambience the guitars sculpt an indistinct yet mesmeric image in thoughts, their sound and emotive intent reminding of The Cure around their second album. As a tempestuous shadow looms nearer well into the track a sense of foreboding is thick enough to taste yet is held back to seemingly dissipate as Oncoming Dark takes over the narrative. Driven by a wonderfully acoustic guitar core and similarly persuasive clean Peter Gabriel like vocals, the track has a Latin embrace to its rock stroll and melodic flames. It is a sensational piece and only the first of so many. Igniting its urgency for a rousing climax it evolves into the crystalline entrance of Through the Glass where again melodic enterprise and sonic endeavour make the warmest wrap. Richly infectious and equally incendiary to mental imagery, something which evolves itself during each companionship with the album, the piece of music offers a classic metal fire with King Diamond like lining. Three tracks in and already the release has drawn on the essences of a varied seed base, with the following blackened Cinnamon Balls with rasping serpentine black metal vocals framing the emerging tale and its technical metal coaxing, just another thrilling shift in stance, flavour, and imagination.

The temptation to go through every track is irresistible but with restraint in place as we go on, further expressive highlights in nothing but stunning invention throughout the album, come in firstly Last of the Light. It is a carefully forged merger of harshly driven erosion vocally and seductive enthralment melodically which shifts from a grasping toxic rough caress through a piano framed emotive elegance with guitar heat burning wonderfully, to a jazz hearted exploration of the heart. Haunts of the Underworld is another charmer which ignites intense ardour, its compelling beauty and peaceful yet energetic beckoning paced by shadows which open their arms into a fiery intensity which captivates rather than approaching as a violent transgressor.

The closing moment of the album is arguably its greatest success, though choice of best track shifts from listen to listen. Starting with a rhythmic military ‘two-step’, Ball-Room entices with folk metal fingertips before releasing more black metal toxins into its deliciously expressive breast. Blending in melodic rock hooks and power metal like energy, as well as great clean vocals alongside the insidious caustic graze, it is an outstanding and irresistible dance which moves into the equally stunning closing piece, And Then it Was, which continues in the same formidable and diverse vein whilst offering its own individual nuances and imagination.

   Mantiis is nothing like you are imagining, even now, but an album which will elevate you to a satisfaction and bliss only a few releases each year is capable of. Obsidian Kingdom has just become a lustful favourite here.

Get Mantiis free from http://obsidiankingdom.bandcamp.com/album/mantiis

http://obsidiankingdom.com/

9.5/10

RingMaster 29/03/2013

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Cult Of Luna: Vertikal

     Cult Of Luna has always been a band which has challenged and stretched thoughts, senses, and rock music itself but with their new album Vertikal, the Swedish post metallers have explored and aurally sculpted their finest hour to date. The album is a colossal journey and an intense emotional narrative which transports the listener into a place of stark beauty and oppressive grandeur whilst wrapping its recipients in the dystopian canvas upon which the immense and riveting structures of the album are built.

The five years since previous album Eternal Kingdom has been a far too quiet a period for fans of the band especially with their absence from live performances until this new release was completed and ready. Their return though will make those years feel a distant memory such its staggering creativity and presence. Vertikal evokes thoughts and emotions upon a theme influenced by Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis, the direct and imposing use of machinery, repetition, and unrewarding oppression a shared realm. Telling us the source of the theme which openly guides the album merely gives it a name as the invention, passion, and craft of the album and songwriting portrays the intent and purpose of the release with skilled ease without any added help. With every note the album seduces, squalls, and evokes the power of its heart and intentions into a clear and towering realisation, its structures and layers acute, defined, and linear. It ignites imagery with the strength and guile of a hypnotist but there is nothing frivolous or misleading in this stunning piece of ingeniousness.

Opening track The One is initially a resonating heartbeat, the beats of the song soon an emerging ‘figure’ as dawning sonics and distressed chilled ambience adds flesh. Whether you imagine it as echoes of a soul lost in an imposing yet distant reality to him or of the cold uncaring place itself, or anything else conjured, the piece presents itself as a lonely mournful dirge like existence leading towards the following enveloping heights. I: The Weapon follows to lay out a solemn yet persuasive argument, its imposing breath and melodic dazzling a soundscape of harsh unremitting control and demands but an assurance all is right and rewarding within its tight embrace. There is also a sense of defiance, sinewy whispers which vein the piece without making a vociferous declaration. To be honest people will interpret as they feel; the band as much as revealing their intentions and creative thoughts providing a template and masterful aural paint box for each to envisage their own visions and that as much as the striking sounds is the triumph of the release. If you are not ‘seeing’ things, feeling the world suggested around your thoughts and emotive imagination, you arguably are not listening to this album.

As it delves further into the brooding landscape tracks like the vast and cavernous Vicarious Redemption mesmerise and intimidate. The piece is a scenic building up and undressing of the senses, its sonic travelogue as beautiful as it is at times emotionally distressing. It is an inspiring tale all on its own but within the album removes the listener from any last attachment to their real world, wrapping them wholly within this ‘fantasy’ spiced with real connections to all our lives. It is the central soul to the album in many ways and quite magnificent.

Through further experiences like the dark sapping wash of The Sweep, the mechanical consumption of the senses scarring Synchronicity, and the bleak Mute Departure, the exhausting but enthralling journey gains more depth and definition. It has a lure and beckoning as strong as the threatening and devouring weight also in place and a beauty to its erosive abrasion which is just irresistible.

As the discordant innocence of Disharmonia leads towards the wonderful In Awe Of You are almost at the end of your strength to continue the exploration such its power and deliciously demanding and rewarding brilliance, but continue you do to be brought within further delicious imagination and passion. The second of this pair of tracks is another expanse of passional craft and imagination, the piece at times reminding of the Seventeen Seconds/Faith era of The Cure.

Passing Through with its caustic caresses completes what will remain one of the albums of the year. Released via Indie Recordings, Vertikal is a sensational and deeply compelling album for the ear, heart, and imagination.

www.cultofluna.com

RingMaster 26/01/2013

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Eryn Non Dae. : Meliora

    Meliora is the new album from French experimental metallers Eryn Non Dae. and is a tsunami of a release, a record which swamps without respite the senses with colossal waves of remarkable imagination and aggressive fury. Already the recipients of strong acclaim for previous album Hydra Lernaia, the Toulouse based quintet have raised not only their own bar with its successor but that of dark progressive and extreme metal as a whole. The previous album did not get the rewards it deserved but with the impressive evolution of their sound upon Meliora, one can only hope and suspect that the M&O Music released album will have no such issues.

Since forming in 2001,Eryn Non Dae. has created sounds which for a lack of a better description, find an alliance within avant-garde metal, not that they can truly be placed anywhere. It is a band which creates soundscapes of rich bleeding shadows and dark thirsty ambiences alongside unique progressive ingenuity in sound and thought as well as ferocious debilitating intensities and rhythms. They do not offer journeys which are easy or immediately accessible but without doubt make the rewards triumphant and wholly fulfilling. The band has built up a massive reputation for their craft and invention through stunning live shows alongside the likes of Gojira, Pelican, Jenx, The Ocean, Black Bomb A, Sleepers, Trigger the Bloodshed, and across multiple festival performances, as well as releases which began in 2005 with The Never-Ending Whirl Of Confusion EP. The EP was released under the name END and received great critical acclaim. With the signing to Metal Blade Records for their debut album Hydra Lernaïa in 2009, the band changed the name to Eryn Non Dae. to avoid confusion with other artists. Again the release was strongly received, the complexities of songwriting and craft as well as the impacting atmospheres garnering ever increasing positivity. As with the previous releases, Meliora was recorded with producer Mobo and simply leaves those earlier great creations in its wake.

The seven track release leaves no aspect of the mind and senses untouched, the seemingly never ending opening to first track Chrysalis alone a scorched sonic heralding of destructive ambience which intimidates and ignites the tentative of openness. Once at full expanse, the track is a bruising storm of intensive sonic manipulation from guitarists Franck Quintin and Yann Servanin, caged by the tremendous skills and aggression of drummer Julien Rufié. The song ripples with thought and ingenuity, perpetually rearranging and reinventing its textures and stark atmospheres to accentuate and deepen their power and intrigue whether through melodic and reserved devices or outright fury. The vocals of Mathieu B. Nogues are as impressive of the sounds, his ease at sharing corrosive growls or whispered suggestions as immense and dramatic as the towering sounds surrounding him.

Also impressive and important is the clarity to each member the production offers whilst holding tight the intense power and presence they have as a unit. For many releases this can be an issue where their aural torrents outweighs the individual elements but not upon Meliora where bassist Mickaël André, who anywhere else might have been lost in the sonic furnace, is able to bring great depth to the tracks whilst showing the inventive skills and ideas he offers.

The following tracks The Great Downfall and Scarlet Rising transports the listener to adjacent and different emotive post-apocalyptic engagements, the first dawning on a similar premise to the first song before unleashing a doom soaked thick wrap of colossal energy and towering guitar venom. The track crawls through a varied landscape to continually intrigue and infect the senses whilst its successor is a greedier rabid sonic rage. It too though is an uncompromising and twisting proposition which nothing can be taken granted over, the song like all an unpredictable glory which flows seamlessly and effortlessly despite the obvious and unrelentingly shifting technical prowess in songwriting and play at work.

Best track on the album is Ignitus, though closely rivalled by all. It is a devastating outpouring of insidious energies and spiteful creativity, a raging aural thirst which saps the breath whilst fuelling the passions with incredible imagination and enterprise. Muto and Black Obsidian Pyre stand close by its side, both a deluge of innovation and heart borne rancor bringing the mightiest of pleasure in their individually diverse ways.

Closing with the outstanding Hidden Lotus, another inspiring and astonishing encounter, Meliora is outstanding to its very core and a release impossible to compare to others. Certainly fans of bands such as Meshuggah, The Faceless, Between The Buried And Me, and The Afterimage will devour the album but extreme metal as a whole should note that in Eryn Non Dae. it has a band which will continually stretch the wide genre to impressive heights.

www.erynnondae.com

RingMaster 30/11/2012

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

 

Sonnymoon: Self Titled

Photo credit- Patti Miller.

Unclassifiable, almost indescribable, and thoroughly enthralling, the new self titled album from US experimentalists Sonnymoon is a bedazzling jewel of this musical year. It is a release which magnificently stretches the sounds conjured within as much as the listener, an album which at times is pure rapture and celestial manna for the senses and in the moments where individual taste means a less cohesive connection only ever leaves one smoking in grateful  thought and imagination.

Sonnymoon consists of Dane Orr and Anna Wise, who met whilst studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. The Boston duo already have found acclaim through debut EP Golden Age of 2009, two track release Blast Off at the tail of last year, and the 2012 EP earlier this year. The new album is the band at its most magnetic yet, a journey of intangible and mesmeric soundscapes which almost defy logic but fluidly bring everything into a seamless and ingenious union. It is near impossible to describe their sound but calling it a fiery blend of The Sugarcubes, Rip Rig & Panic, De Staat, Propaganda, and Peaking Lights, is kind of in the ball park. The release is provocative and evocative, something to fire up the mind whilst igniting the heart.

Released through Plug Research, the album is in the mind twisting the psyche immediately with opener Wild Rumpus. Released as a single earlier this year, the song is a kaleidoscope of invention and its sonic offspring. It enters on a disorientating wind of electronics expulsions sending thoughts scattering in all directions before settling into a lively trip of eager jumbled rhythms, disharmonious whispers, and celestial dazzles. The enchantment which is the voice of Wise permeates the assembled entourage of sounds like a siren, her wonderful tones pulling everything round her like a melodic magnet. It is a stunning start soon accompanied by further outstanding pieces off composition and its realisation.

The warm perpetually evolving Greatness holds the heart in a seductive embrace with again Wise shining like a sun amongst the ever shifting infectious sounds of Orr. Completely different from its predecessor but still as innovative and compulsive, the track sparks the remaining fires the first left merely smouldering.

The album is kind of in two halves though it is preference to the sounds which makes the distinction. The first part is an energetic nonstop escalator of imaginative and air juggling invention whilst the second is a more relaxed and unassuming collection of songs though no less visionary. The likes of the wonderful sultry jazz coated Kali and the simmering Watersboiled accompanied by the irresistible temptations of Flit, Fleet, Float, and Nothing Thought, has every thought and emotion lifted and immersed into the beauteous contagion the songs offer. Kali is aural sex, its seduction through harmonies and shadowed caresses addiction forming whilst the following Watersboiled is a simmering orgasmic treat with sizzling harmonic kisses and splintered melodics upon dark pulses. It is again an infection of the deepest form and along with its sister in delicious wantonness just before, they are not only the best moments on the album but arguably in indie music this year.

As mentioned the latter part of the album has a more reserved and settled presence though there is no lack of unpredictable and thrilling invention, just an overall smoother flow of whispers and stroking warmth. Songs like the slightly corrosive Others By with its squeezed ambience forming bulges of disturbed energy and scorched melodies and the woozy Every Summer Night leave one lost in wraps of feverish sound and vision whilst the closing Just Before Dawn just sends chills through the body. Its first half is a wonder borne of Young Marble Giants, that same simple elegance pouring from every note and syllable into the ear. Nearing its fourth minute and halfway in, the song dons an orchestral lined cloak and transports the listener into a world of courtliness driven by natural peace and grandeur.

To be honest this only gives you a glancing blow at representing the majesty which is called Sonnymoon, band and album. It is a release which inspires and incites with every second whilst offering the time of your life in fractured excellence and discordant blinding beauty.

http://www.sonnymoonmusic.com/

RingMaster 16/09/2012

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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Digital Diktator: From The Edge Of The Universe

The War Of The Worlds template takes on a more salacious and vindictive depth with the debut release from Digital Diktator in the shape of the venomous From The Edge Of The Universe. The EP is a striking and destructive violation upon the senses and rational thought which is intrusive, challenging, and perpetually compulsive. Most of all it is very impressive and even though one feels like they are caught within and witnessing a digital car crash such the intense and impactful manipulation it makes on thought and emotions it is equally very satisfying and rewarding.

Consisting of Digital Diktator (Programming/Keyboards/Backing Vocals/Drums), Dynamic Statue (Vocals), and Rösti (Guitars/Keyboards/Programming), the band with From The Edge Of The Universe bring evil and destiny into our midst through seven tracks which strip all areas of metal, industrial, and music as a whole to re-invent and twist into their own vindictive sounds. The release brings forth a tale making it part of the plundering and provocative assimilation of the senses. Yes it is all steeped in sci-fi and distinct origins found in HG Wells, Star Trek, and many more things fiction and some would have us believe as fact, but it is all very enjoyable and some of the more striking and imaginative sounds heard for a while.

The opening Intro (The Arrival Of The Mother) marks the arrival and the central point for the tale to wrap around. The following first full track It Began On Mars soon adds to its weave of electronic sounds an intimidating muscular pulse to begin a scourge on the ear. The track is a flurry of samples, twisting sounds, and switching rhythms and pace to keep one constantly intrigued and involved. Within the song itself there is an open diversity which is soon apparent across the release itself, again to ensure nothing is ever expected or presumed.

The unravelling story within From The Edge Of The Universe we will leave for your investigation, it is a full journey that needs as much attention and focus as the great sounds surrounding it, and is as rewarding. Journey Within shows the diversity of the release, its pulsating flowing breath an enveloping blend of dark electro, ebm, and industrial manipulation. The vocals take on a harsh gait which takes a short time to find an attachment but also makes a contrasting entity adding depth to the vibrant energy driven sounds.

The Window and This is You continue the unpredictable and agreeable creativity. The first has a gothic tone to its tumultuous rhythms and darkened halls with excellent clean vocals showing as much thought goes into them as the music and their connection to the theme within. The second of the two took the longest to get thoughts and the ear around, its classic rock guitar stripping the senses alongside the harsh pit borne spite, and to be honest still has not found a seamless bond with the senses but within the journey and overall EP composition brings a definite important and striking element to the whole premise of the EP.

The excellent Time To Depart is easily the best track on From The Edge Of The Universe, an insistent and rampaging littering of splintered beats and shards of acidic melodies upon the senses. The song has a force and inventiveness reminding of the recent Cynical Existence album, wrapping around the heart with a mesmeric shower of melodic light whilst poking and puncturing it with violating evil stained fingers of intensity.

As the closing Outro (Of Ancients, Gods and Us) departs the release leaves behind a depleted and thoroughly satisfied… one almost wants to say victim. From The Edge Of The Universe is an excellent release which though it will not find a welcoming home every where will more than give all those into inventive and experimental industrial, harsh ebm, and dark electro, a pleasing and intriguing time.

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Ringmaster 01/05/2012

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