Deadfall – Sentinel EP

When releasing their five track EP New Light two years ago Massachusetts band Deadfall easily impressed and set up strong anticipation of things to follow with their djent carved progressive instrumentals. It was a release which sparked a real appetite for the creative explorations  of duo Eddie Kim and Sean Dusoe. It also came with areas which you hoped they expanded further as well as elements where the release suggested it could benefit from investigating, like adding a vocalist and live drums. The Sentinel EP finds the band, now a sextet, has indeed experimented with and brought in those aspects as well as pushed their imagination and invention on, and the result is quite magnificent. The three track release is a thrilling and inspiring slice of progressive metal, the band still seeded in its initial sound but a fuller, healthier, and more potent beast.

Now alongside Kim (guitar) and Dusoe (bass), the Watertown based Deadfall consists of vocalist Chris Greene, guitarists Kyle Brennan and Keith Dusoe, and drummer  Marc Brennan. Taking inspirations from the likes of Periphery, TesseracT, Meshuggah, Cloudkicker, and Animals As Leaders into their own adventure, the band has with   Sentinel laid down a declaration of an emerging impressive force which can only improve to greater stirring heights. The release is a teaser to a debut album scheduled for later in the year and it certainly has hunger licking its ravenous lips in anticipation.

The title track opens up the release and immediately has attention snapping in its direction especially when the vocals and organic feel of the drums make their early declarations. Initial contact comes from gnarly riffs picking and chewing on the ear whilst beats crisply lay their sinews across the instantly eager senses but it is the smouldering expressive tones of Greene which make the biggest statement for thoughts to leap upon and passions ignite to. His delivery is a Chino Moreno like wrap around words, a warm seductive tone emotively washing the intensive riffing and spiralling sonic invention of the guitars. The song is a startling and enthralling encounter and for those aware of the earlier release an exhilarating evolution. The persistent gnawing from riffs and rhythms adds riveting shadows and menace to the contrasting temptation and when vocals take on their own caustic growl later into the track, the union is sealed with rapacious majesty.

The other two songs are re-workings of two of the instrumentals on New Light, and it is fascinating to hear and see their progression from exploratory and open promise into intense and scintillating pieces of carnivorous beauty. The first Shades Of Inception takes no time to wind the senses into its muscular knot of sonic manipulation as brawling coarse vocals rage against their walls. Whereas the original version took its time to ignite its predatory passion now it is more urgently into its attack, softening up its victim for the following melodic voice of Greene and the atmospheric caressing keys to colour a tempering ambience against the rabidly tinged riff fired confrontation. Again there is nothing but lustful satisfaction ignited by the eagerly shifting blend of aggression and resourceful elegance. Deadfall have discovered the perfect alchemy to merging spirited spitefulness and incendiary incandescence, a result which leaves the listener basking in hot-blooded imagination.

Final track The Divergence shimmers with melodic crystalline warmth and light bursts before being cored by another torrent of voracious djent honed riffs, once more the union irresistible and skilfully brought to bear on the ear. Bruising and alluring in the same and every breath it takes, the song escapes into every pore, synapse, and esurient thought rife before its enterprise, whilst conjuring another unique and contagiously evocative blaze.

The Sentinel EP, as impressive as it is straight off the bat reveals more of its triumph with each additional venture, the already renowned guitar craft of Kim creating stunning paintings of sound aided and matched by each element and member of the band. Deadfall has arrived at its full sound but the EP still only suggests they are scratching the surface of their promise which is undeniably exciting. As a name your price release their Bandcamp page, there is no reason not to make the first step in joining their sure rise which has its next major landmark one suspects with the forthcoming album.

www.facebook.com/deadfall1

9.5/10

RingMaster 17/06/2013

 

 

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Sleepers Awake – Transcension

With masterful potency and invigorating imagination Transcension, the new album from progressive metallers Sleepers Awake, takes senses and thoughts on a seventy minute flight through incendiary soundscapes and emotionally fuelled journeys leaving the richest captivation on ear and passions. It is mightily compelling and accomplished slab of inventive melodic fire which incites the surest pleasure and ignites a new beacon within the genre.

Formed in 2005, the Columbus, Ohio quartet of vocalist/guitarist Chris Thompson, guitarist Rob Bradley, bassist/backing vocalist Kedar Hiremath, and drummer Chris Burnsides, first made a wider impression on certainly the progressive and post-metal underground with debut album Priests Of The Fire, a release which was no stranger to acclaim with its adventurous intent and diverse flavours and textures. The self-released Transcension is no different and destined to find the same reception at the very least, and one suspects, even stronger passion fuelled acclaimed reactions with its impressive and thoroughly exhilarating evolution. The greater invention to songwriting and sound is breath-taking at times and always enthralling as tracks and album lifts the listener into a realm of torrential emotive provocation. There is also an anthemic energy to Transcension, its excited presence and voice thrusting a rich fascination of ideas, lyrical narrative, and seductive enterprise straight to the heart. It is not a perfect album but walks the rim of that plateau from start to finish, standing as one of the most thrilling albums this year.

The names of the likes of Tool, Opeth, Mastodon, even Rush have been cast over the band leading up to the album release and at times it is easy to see why especially in regard to Tool but there is much more to their sound and immediately across the opening tracks we would add the likes of Life Of Agony for the depth of emotion and dramatic structures to the songs, and Poet Of The Fall for the more instantaneous melodic temptation offered. Do not mistake this as suggesting the album is an echo of such references or from the constant mention of its melodic heart that it is a mellow or restrained beast. The album stands apart from most with ease and has a snarl and aggression which leaves you exhausted. It offers a seamless merger of glowing sonic beauty and stern merciless shadows making for a sensational exploration.

With a concept based around the tale of an augur (a priest in the classical world) and his struggle with higher forces while exploring the depths of existential contemplation as the venture moves through magical worlds lined with fantastic creatures and surreal imagery, Transcension opens up its experience with The Augur and takes mere moments with its first breaths of sonic guitar beckoning to draw strong attention. Soon into its charged presence with the excellent vocals of Thompson making a further deeply persuasive introduction to the unfolding lyrical emprise and mutually charismatic sounds, the track stirs up appetite and emotions with continually intriguing and evolving invention, intensity and melodic imagination a fluid shifting instruction for hunger and rapturous reactions.

The impressive start is soon built upon further by the outstanding Burdened and the equally stunning Apparitions. The first of the pair is a nine minute plus epic of melodic parades and vigorous rhythmic enticements which again never stay in a single stance for longer than necessary as it ignites visual soaked thoughts and poetic imagination. There is a loud Perfect Circle/Life Of Agony whisper across the track, especially vocally, as well as a prowling and intimidating guttural glaze found by the vocals which adds a caustic embrace ensuring the course of the song is never straight forward and safe. Arguably the track is over long for personal tastes but in saying that there is never a moment where captivation wanders or thoughts look at the hands of their impatient watch. Its successor opens on an expansive ambience with the enveloping breezes soon joined by fervent expression and zealous emotion from vocals and the melodic call of the guitars. Veining this throughout the drums and bass reveal inciting sinews for a predatory essence behind the even more Keith Caputo like tones of Thompson. It is a song of aural alchemy and such its power and craft alongside its predecessor gives the rest of the album a tall order to replicate, something it valiantly fails at such the strength of these songs.

If the album started at this point there would still be nothing but full praise and greed for the release, the likes of the rapacious Slave Within with its unexpected guttural squalling, the equally scowling Saint Condemned, and the magnetic instrumental riveting Circles Without Division, all explorations of and inducements to the ripest depths of mind and soul. The fusion of light and ferocious dark in the first two of these songs is immense whilst the crystalline sonic shimmers and melodic flames around a busy populace in the third pure temptation.

Through to its conclusion the album continues to seize and paint upon the listener’s emotional canvas, the deliciously descriptive beauty of Throat of Winter and the tempestuous Equa Mortuorum two more major landmarks in the traversing of the chronicle. Transcension is an intoxicating album which though it has its greatest strengths at the fore of its spellbinding company never slips below giving an intensely emotion and mentally arousing impact, and leaves one final slice of galvanic glory with closing track The Fulcrum to linger in its wake.

If progressive metal with true heart and sizzling imagination without any form of indulgence is on your menu than  Sleepers Awake and Transcension is a must. It is a fulfilling and invigorating piece of artistry, a must have should have for all melodic metal fans.

http://www.facebook.com/SleeperRock

8.5/10

RingMaster 17/06/2013

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Antipope – 3 Eyes Of Time

With more grooves than a tyre wall at Silverstone, 3 Eyes of Time the new album from Finnish harsh progressive metal band Antipope is an intriguing mix of flavours and spices within a weave of eclectic metal influences. Awash with vibrant melodies and pleasing progressive enterprise it is a release which ignites plenty of appetite for the band and whilst not being the best or most original record to step forth over recent months it is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable.

Formed in 2004, the Oulu band have always been aside of most extreme metal bands, essences of black and death metal standing side by side with those of doom, gothic, and industrial metal within a continually evolving landscape of ideas from the band. After numerous EPs and demos Antipope drew the strongest attention with their debut album Desert which was released in 2010 on their own TCM Records. It was followed by the band signing with Violent Journey Records for the follow-up House of Harlot the following year and also this their third full length. Their second album saw the band create an even more groove laden collection of songs which 3 Eyes Of Time pushes further within its rich wealth of shadows and rapacious sound. The new release also sees vocalist Mikko Myllykangas take on bass duties after fellow band founder Santtu Heinilehto left the band in 2012, and leaves an eager wash of satisfaction for its imagination capturing escapades.

Opening song Close makes its introduction with a melodic beckoning of a singular guitar which smacks of The Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams, it is a heavily shadowed lure with bass in tow soon joined by a magnetic sonic tease and the expressive vocals of Myllykangas offering a slight Marilyn Manson feel. Once settled into its place the track wraps emotive arms around the ear whilst the vocalist moves through varied deliveries to bring a pleasing and unpredictable voice to the melodic wash now in charge of the still attention grabbing sinews. It is not a startling encounter but a strong and satisfying beginning to the release which passes over to the excellent Last Chance.

Guitar and bass immediately provoke and niggle the ear with compelling temptation whilst concussive beats begin their offering to the brewing sense of antagonism. What follows is a tempest of demanding but thrilling rhythmic and riff laden hunger lain with potent melodic endeavour and power metal like embraces. Admittedly the song ebbs and flows with the insistent and industrial honed urgency leaving the appetite greedy whilst the gentler flames incites a drop in intensity to the brewing ardour but it all goes to make the song imaginative and enthralling.

The following stroll of electronic and gothic metal fusion The River Standing Still, keeps attention firmly gripped, its heavy shadows and symphonic whispers expressing a temptation which is rich and teasing whilst the solo and melodic invention leaves a healthy desire for more. There is a sense of The New Jacobin Club to the dramatic presence of the song which asks and gets stronger involvement in its narrative whilst the following likes of the Fear Factory/ Type O Negative sounding Burn with riveting rhythms from drummer Tuska E. adding stronger addiction to the thrillingly carved textures from guitarists Juho Rikberg and Antti Karjalainen, the mix of smouldering atmospherics and fiery invention that is Exposure, and A Decomposing Ritual of Absorption all offer variation and refreshing individuality to the album. The last of these three is a prowling and consuming sinew veined cloud of blackened progressiveness and melodic acidity dripping emotive provocation and inciting expression.

With both The Logic of Self-Discovery and closer Guiding Light bringing further potent highlights to the album, the last a brawling insurgence of thrash filtered intimidation with sonic intrigue and melodic magnetism, 3 Eyes Of Time leaves a full stomach of pleasure and invigorating creative energy. It can be argued it also leaves a feeling of a lost opportunity in its wake as throughout there is a feeling that songs could have been pushed into greatness and adventure but it does offer complete enjoyment which is impossible to dismiss.

http://www.antipope.info

8/10

RingMaster 10/05/2013

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MYCELIA to release their album Nova on Monday 15th July‏

EURO PROGRESSIVE METAL CREW MYCELIA RELEASE STUNNING SOPHOMORE ALBUM!

With an expansive collection of influences and an intoxicating presence that draws from the progressive and technical metal musings of The Human Abstract, The Faceless, Meshuggah, and Between the Buried and Me, Mycelia have sculptured an engaging sound that will utterly consume you.

Born in the idyllic Swiss mountain town of Le Croix, Mycelia’s fiercely robust blend of hard-edged progressive metal is the perfect example of a band rebelling against their surroundings. Founded in 2010 by Mike Schmid (Guitarist) and Marc Trummer (Drums) who had a strong fondness for the  likes of The Human Abstract, Meshuggah, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, Mike and Marc soon began to lay down their very first tracks, and within a matter of months, the duo managed to assemble a full line-up with Patrick Küng joining on second guitar, Roy Sonderegger on bass, and vocalist Marc Fürer, stepping up to add another layer to the band’s already formidable sound. The Swiss slayers then went on to cultivate an impressive following in their homeland by releasing two digital EPs and by supporting the likes of Carnifex, Veil of Maya, Suffokate, and Maroon, along the way.

Regrettably, just before the release of their 2012 debut album ‘Isolator’, Guitarist Patrick left the band and the quartet spent much of the year regrouping, writing for a record, and playing a series of profile shows in Switzerland and Austria. During the later part of 2012, the rejuvenated foursome hit the studio with Jocke Skog (guitarist of Clawfinger) at the helm and started work on their sophomore album ‘Nova’.

The rambunctious four-piece came out of the studio with an explosive record. The album instantly takes off at breakneck speed with frantic drumming, searing riffs, and deep growls with the opener ‘‘Shmashmortion’, which buries itself deep within your eardrums. The pace continues with the stabbing groove of ‘Ectoparasite’, before the ambient dynamism of ‘Dopamine’ glides you to another dimension. Next up, the twisted texturing of ‘C.O.R.P’ clearly illustrates the band’s diversity and deftness, while the three part attack of ‘The Golden Ratio’ further exhibits the quartet’s indisputable power and guile as they weave and pound your inner cranium to marvellous effect.

== MYCELIA RELEASE ‘NOVA’ ON 15th JULY 2013 THROUGH ALL DIGITAL STORES ==

 

www.mycelia.ch/

Corsair – Ghosts of Proxima Centauri

This week sees the re-release of Ghosts of Proxima Centauri from progressive rock /melodic metallers Corsair through Shadow Kingdom Records who released their acclaimed self-titled album of earlier in the year. The six track EP first made its well-received appearance in 2011 and makes a nice accompaniment to their current album. For those new to the band and also existing fans it is an enterprising and appetizing look into the band leading up to the recent release.

Their second independently released record before signing up with Shadow Kingdom, Ghosts of Proxima Centauri has a majority of the elements which went into their excellent album showing the evolution was in full swing within their inventive songwriting and imagination. More as the promo for the release says ‘laid back’ than its successor, the EP still has the tools and intent to rock the passions into action as well as exploring expansive progressive expression. If someone new to the band, the record also makes a fully convincing persuasion to check out their following album, its sounds and kaleidoscope of textures igniting ones would imagine an urgent appetite to do so.

The opening instrumental Wolfrider is a pleasing and inviting start to the EP, its fiery breath and provocative sinews a strong base for the expressive melodic and sonic colouring of guitarists Paul Sebring and Marie Landragin. It is not a track to ignite the passions but certainly makes a very decent lead into the following Warrior Woman, especially with its blazing climax. The second track is a thrilling ride of intensive riffs and incendiary melodic teasing with a groove which lights up the senses. The vocals of the guitarists with bassist Jordan Brunk adding his part are decent enough though the production leaves them less impressive than they should be, but it not really an issue to be honest such the quality of the song and those to follow. Many have placed references to the likes of Thin Lizzy and Hawkwind upon the band and certainly on this track and whole release it is hard to offer many alternatives. It is classic rock from the seventies with a bite which leaves an addictive taste to its thrilling encounter and a contagious lingering temptation.

Burnish The Blades offers a slightly less forceful stance but still with an energy and intent which vigorously dances with the ear whilst dazzling it through adventurous descriptive flames from the guitar framed by the excellent rhythmic craft of drummer Aaron Lipscombe. The blues expression of the solos envelope the imagination with a pleasing burning touch whilst the song itself without reaching the peak of its predecessor is a riveting companion as is Centurion, another thought drawing landscape of creativity and colourful invention. The track adds deep character to the narrative of the guitars as they help the vocals cast the fantasy fuelled tale leaving a definite greed for more even if again it lacks the virulence of Warrior Woman.

The closing pair of Orca and Eyes of the Gods completes an impressive release which certainly deserves its second chance to grab wider awareness. The first of the pair has a wonderful additive of female vocals, their sirenesque lure into the rampant and excited groove of the song and its virulent rhythms sensational whilst the song itself and its ever twisting and bewitching invention seals the deals for the passions as it stands to the fore of the release as its best moment. The closing track which features the excellent emotive violin of Gabe Cooper, though one feels it could have been even more potent with a better feel to its heart within the production as with the vocals throughout, is a riveting heated sunset to the album, its air rich in sonic colour and creative veining to inspire and conspire with thoughts and emotions.

Ghosts of Proxima Centauri impressed on its first release and still does even knowing what immense quality followed its wake. Whether discovering Corsair through the album or this EP both are releases all progressive and melodic rock/metal fans should and need to walk the outstanding lands of.

http://www.skykrakken.com/

8/10

RingMaster 02/05/2013

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The Ocean – Pelagial

Undoubtedly The Ocean has always been a band which demands a deeper concentrated focus to discover, understand, and reap the rewards of their creative leviathan like albums. They continually challenge the listener and themselves from album to album, investigating the complexities and simplicities of sound, emotion, and imagination. Their eagerly awaited new album Pelagial is no different, a release which offers a journey of beauty, intensity, rapacious shadows, and impacting depths which ignite the visual and emotional heart.

Pelagial as its title suggests, is a submersion through the open ocean, an intriguing and inciting dive through five pelagic depth zones: epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathyalpelagic, abyssopelagic, and hadopelagic. It is also simultaneously a provocative soundscape across the darker crevices and corners of the mind to which emotions and reflective shadows are ignited for an individual and personal concept; it is a unique travelogue of intensity and inner exploration unique to each listener. One continuous piece of music split into passages or episodes with interludes of underwater sounds and samples taken from old submarine movies to mark transitions, the album envelopes the senses and thoughts in a richly enterprising and invigorating expanse of sound and descriptive sonic narrative. It is challenging and at times claustrophobic, an overwhelming intrusively close wrap devoid of light the further down into its dangerous depths you go, and a piece of invention with a current which guides and forces listener and album into an emotional pressurised squall.

Mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Witchcraft), the Metal Blade Records released Pelagial is a progressive tour-de-force and an album which at the same time leaves questions in thoughts, not as to how impressive it is, that is undeniable, but how to interpret not only its expanse but the emotions it ignites within its enthralling company. It is without doubt an album which has to be devoured numerous times to appreciate and reveal all the scintillating adventure, pure invention, and furnace of multi-faceted emotions it unleashes, and that is possibly the only thing to lever against its towering presence for some, the intensive work needed to truly understand it and reap the deepest riches within. To counter that comment though it should be said that the album is one of their most accessible releases in recent years making for as mentioned an insatiably intriguing and evocative encounter which continues to make the band the most wonderfully unpredictable and forward thinking boundary pushing forces of within metal/rock.

From the opening light soaked piano crafted instrumental Epipelagic, its surface a light and warm dazzling beauty, the album breaks the surface to melodically swim through Mesopelagic: Into the Uncanny. The guitars of Robin Staps and Jonathan Nido sculpt the coloured textured waters magnetically whilst additional strings add emotive whispers to elevate the lush coaxing. The rhythms and guitars raise the temperature as the urgent busy surroundings to the continuing submergence end the link between air and water with the vocals of Loic Rossetti, as ever irresistible whether scowling and growling or seductively expelling the lyrical revelation and its mutually descriptive and personal potency, lights up the atmosphere. Beside him the crisp guiding rhythms of drummer Luc Hess frame and vein the piece whilst the bass of Louis Jucker adds further menacing textures to the now imposing strength of the landscape.

The three part passage of Bathyalpelagic steps out from the already riveting drop, especially parts I: Impasses and II: The Wish in Dreams, both virulently persuading the passions with their continually shifting and swirling addictive and uncompromising declarations. The vocals of Rossetti on the first are aural manna, an irresistible temptation within the bruising and explosive enterprise persistently buffeting and thrilling the senses. The second part increases the intensity and exhausting toll with a ravenous and imperious tempest of sonic strokes and melodic sirenicity within an imposing provocation which refuses to take no or defiance for an answer.

The two sections of Abyssopelagic press harder with a predatory breath as the pressure and intensity darkens and increases further into the release you go through but also hold moments of acclimatised calm and resolve which temper the building ferocity of emotion and intensity whilst Hadopelagic I: Omen of the Deep and especially its companion II: Let Them Believe makes the listener feel at ease with the new depth, the seeming elevation away from the impending blackest depths a melodic and inspiring deep breath for the final push which the beckoning primal rhythms of Demersal: Cognitive Dissonance welcomes with contagious invention and initially startling mesmerism, like a lack of oxygen induced temptress,  and the closing Benthic: The Origin of Our Wishes devours, greedily accepting the offering with carnivorous hunger.

Pelagial is exceptional but as mentioned an album which has to be dived into numerous times preferably as one continuous movement, to truly feel its full triumph, each submergence unique and  consistently rewarding invigorating explorations from the distinct and innovative imagination of The Ocean.

http://theoceancollective.com/pelagial/

9.5/10

RingMaster 01/05/2013

 

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Empyrios – Zion

Photo by Matteo Ermeti

Italian progressive metallers Empyrios have returned with a beast of an album in Zion, a release which has something for everyone in sound and eclectic imagination. Following their acclaimed album The Glorious Sickness of 2008, the new slab of concentrated enterprise leaves the previous promise of the band wholly realised with a furnace of accomplished invention. Melding everything from industrial to hard rock, djent to classic rock, with plenty more flavours you care to imagine to its progressive heart, Zion is a hulk of a confrontation which inspires, provokes, and thrills from start to finish.

From Rimini, the band was founded by guitar virtuoso and acclaimed producer Simone Mularoni (DGM), and was soon awash with acclaim through debut album …And The Rest Is Silence in 2007 and The Glorious Sickness a year later. The years since the last release has seen the members of the quartet heavily involved with their other projects, touring and creating music making the time to this new release long for the anticipation of their fans. Guitarist Simone Bertozzi joined the Danish metal machine Mnemic for an extensive tour of Europe and Australia whilst drummer Dario Ciccioni was playing with Oliver Hartmann’s solo project Hartmann. Mularoni himself was leading DGM through a European tour with Symphony X but all the time the members were exchanging and working on elements and ideas for the new album with finally the opportunity to enter the studio for its realisation. The Mularonin produced eleven track behemoth, with vocalist Silvio Mancini completing the quartet, has enslaved the brutal and aggressively dynamic side of the band with its enamouring compelling melodic seduction for a tempest marking the band at a new height for their creativity within a devastating presence. Names like Strapping Young Lad, Nevermore, Symphony X, Fear Factory, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Meshuggah are all thrust upon the band and release as references and the release is an amalgam of those essences distilled into something purely individual to the band.

The Scarlet Records released album emerges from a war infused ambience to immediately trample and chew on the senses with crippling beats and gnarly savage riffs whilst electro industrial winds warm the clinging intensity. Opener Nescience takes mere moments to succumb the ear and senses, its rampaging appetite and corrosive breath a delicious malevolence with the snarling growls of bassist Bertozzi adding extra spite. Into its stride the clean melodic tones of Mancini wraps an emotive embrace around the wounds as the guitars also add their restrained flames but the ravaging heart of the track is never quelled, erupting and consuming at a constant persistence throughout. It is a staggering start which satisfies the violent intent and melodic temptation of all hearts with skill and invention.

The following Domino initially lays a sultry wash upon the ear before the tight rhythmic bombardment and mutually offensive riffs grab their piece of the senses firmly. Like the first, into the heart of its provocation the track is a Meshuggah meets Fear Factory blaze of energy whilst the vocals of Bertozzi explore further rock and progressive textures to bring extra thrills to the insatiable passion of the song. Both Masters and Reverie continue the predatory stance as well as unveiling the heart of each songs melodic sun, the first a riveting expanse of emotive persuasion within a frame of unpredictable and air disrupting rhythms with sabre flashes of guitar alongside whilst the second has flumes of rich melodic passion coursing within the walls of merciless metallic entrapment.  Both songs without finding the key to the rapture sparked by their predecessors leave only prime satisfaction in their tow, their magnetic imagination and its skilfully carved aural narrative irresistible.

The excellent Unplugged next steps forward to leave the senses continually wrong-footed and disorientated with its psyche dance of schizo rhythms and equally deranged djent sculpted riffs, whilst around this the melodic heights of the song makes the smoothest conspirator to its vengeful riot of rapacious invention. Through the likes of the outstanding Renovation with its mesmeric call through barbed carnally bred textures, the vocals of Bertozzi quite stunning, the evocative title track, and the closing fury of Madman, the album gives no respite in its hold on the passions, though every song can be given with that welcoming trait. Admittedly the album is strongest across its first half but constantly the result to its impressive presence is hunger for more.

Zion is an excellent album and a very welcome return from a band in Empyrios which just gets better and better.

https://www.facebook.com/empyrios

8.5/10

RingMaster 24/04/2013

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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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Supuration – Cube 3

Despite forming in 1989, French band Supuration has only made its first introduction to the Ringmaster Review with new album Cube 3, the third of a trilogy of albums which began with the first instalment in 1993 and the second coming a decade later. It is an enthralling and magnetic release which even without being able to raise comparisons with its predecessors stands as an intriguing and intensely pleasing encounter.

Hailing from Valenciennes, the trio of Ludovic Loez (keyboards, bass, guitars, vocals), Fabrice Loez (sampler, guitars), and Thierry Berger (drums), has released numerous records alongside the trio of albums, not only as Supuration but also with their more progressive incarnation S.U.P. (Spherical Unit Provided). First album in the trilogy Cube as mentioned made its entrance two decades ago with the second Incubation following in 2003, both to strong acclaim, something the band is prone to receiving across their aural guises. More often than not tagged as progressive death metal, Supuration with the new album alone shows that the label is quite limiting to what is explored and ignited within their diverse and unique imagination. Released via Listenable Records, Cube 3 engages the brutality and black depths of death metal with the soaring expanses of progressive metal undoubtedly, but equally blossoms essences of post punk, groove metal, and avant-garde discord driven invention to their fullest potency within continually twisting and slightly twisted sonic alchemy.

Opening track Syngery Awakes grabs the ear like a bear, its muscular paws a predatory encounter with deep sinewy grooves carving the senses before unleashing scything sonic lashes around the growling vocal malevolence of Loez. The track proceeds to gnaw and brutalise whilst equally seducing with melodic veins of instinctive and tempting elegance musically and equally through clean vocal harmonies alongside malicious squalls for an explosive and enthralling confrontation. The track is like a blend of Sybreed, Livarkahil, and Opeth with whispers of a Karnivool or 6:33 making their quiet yet pungent contribution at times.

The following Introversion takes the mere thumping beats of Berger and taunting guitar provocation to strike a further intensity in focus and brewing passion for what is on offer, the song a stalk of rugged riffs and punchy rhythms speared with infectious guitar flames and persistent grooves which feel familiar yet unrecognisable.  The clean vocals again add an extra scintillating texture to the tempest around them whilst the warmth of the melodic breeze wrapping the sturdier gait of the track, is a wonderful mystery to the rising intensity at the heart of the track.

The Disenthrall and Consumate both intrude upon the senses with startling invention and all-consuming mastery to only increase the now rampant ardour for the release. By the time the pair have ravaged and laid down their irresistible temptation, the album has secured a long-term persuasion no matter what is to come in the latter part of Cube 3. The first of the two is a brief but potent sonic frenzy with raging riffs and equally virulent rhythms which is as much part industrial as it is death or progressive metal, with the air of early Killing Joke and Fear Factory at mischievous play even if not a loud shout sound wise. The second stands over the listener like a hulking leviathan of ravenous riffs and intensity , the drums caging and cutting off any escape so the vocals can scowl and chant over the carcass of the exhausted senses. It is another outstanding violation of thoughts and synapses with the richest of rewards to exhilarate with.

The second half of the album is equally as impacting and aggressively spellbinding with both The Incongruents and The Delegation exploiting the now opened up rapture for the release with riveting imaginative endeavours, the second of the two a carnally invading provocation which is as diverse as it is unreasonably catchy. Though both songs slip slightly below the heights of earlier songs they still excel with tantalising breath before passing over to the excellent Data Dance, the song just one more electrifying pinnacle. Unpredictable and emphatically ingenious with a creative entrapment of epidemic proportions, the song leaves the listener wanting for nothing and bloated on primal intensity and glorious imagination.

With the closing duo of The Flight and The Climax doing no less than bringing a final collective triumph to the album, Code 3 is a stunning slab of progressive death metal or brutally hungry progressive metal, whichever way you look at it, the album is immense and the trigger to go explore the band past and present much deeper.

http://www.facebook.com/sup.supuration

9/10

RingMaster 11/04/2013

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

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