The Ocean - Precambrian (2007)

This week I’ll be treating you with a wee bit of harsh vocals, since I haven’t presented any album of such nature since my first review. Such a gentle soul I have, right?

Agreed, yes? Now let’s dig in.

I don’t know how many of you have heard of this collective of musicians, but I was not prepared when I first heard this (double) album release.  I said collective, yes? Well that is right, because at the time this beast was released the band had more than (the now current) six members. How many? Well, lemme just show you the lineup. 

 

Impressed? Well, that’s not complete either, I’ll just post the full list for better understanding.

Hadean/Archaean (1’st  Disc) :

- Torge Liessmann / drums, percussion
- Matt Beels / guitar
- Robin Staps / guitar, percussion
- Walid Farruque / guitar (track 2)
- Micheal Pilat / bass, vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5)
- Nico Webers / vocals (tracks 1, 2, 3)
- Nate Newton / vocals (track 3)
- Eric Kalsbeek / vocals (track 4)
- Meta / vocals (tracks 1, 5)
- Rene Nocon / vocals (track 3)
- Jason Emry / vocals (track 3)

Proterozoic(2’nd Disc):

- Torge Liessmann / drums, percussion
- Matt Beels / guitar, vocals (tracks 2, 6, 7)
- Robin Staps / guitar
- Micheal Pilat / bass (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7), vocals (tracks 2, 3, 6, 8)
- Hannes Huefken / bass (tracks 4 and 8)
- Jonathan Heine / bass (track 6)
- Stefan Heinemeyer / cello (tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9)
- Karina Suslov / viola (tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
- Christoph Von Der Nahmer / violin (tracks 2, 3, 4, 8)
- Katharina Sellheim / piano (tracks 2, 6, 7, 8, 9)
- John Gürtler / saxophone (track 1)
- Daniel Eichholz / glockenspiel (tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 7)
- Jonas Olsson / tambourine (tracks 5, 7, 8)
- Tomas Svensson / additional samples (track 1)
- Nico Webers / vocals (tracks 2, 5, 8)
- Meta / vocals (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8)
- Tomas Halbom / vocals (track 7)
- Rene Nocon / vocals (tracks 3, 7, 8)
- Nate Newton / vocals (track 8)
- Dwid Hellion / vocals (track 6)
- Jan Oberg / vocals (track 6)
- Caleb Scofield / vocals (track 3)
- Kevin Spacey / passage (track 4, audio from The Life of David Gale)

Innit right?!?

So really, how am I to review this blend of death metal, hardcore, doom, jazz, prog, electronic, sludge and whatever else slab of music you can think of?  I tell you, no man can do it justice.

The best that I can do is choose a couple of songs in order to exemplify the sound (that I would have done anyway) and from that let you be the judges. 

Just a fair warning, the first disc holds the hardcore moment of the album, while the actual goodies start with Siderian.  I also won’t be giving any rating here, because I’m afraid that I could not go with anything less than 10.

L.E: I seem to have forgotten the tracklist, so let come another wall of text for you:

• Hadean/Archadean
• 01. Hadean – The Long March of the Yes-Men
• 02. Eoarchean – The Great Void
• 03. Palaeoarchaen – Man and the Sea
• 04. Mesoarchaean – Legions of Winged Octopi
• 05. Neoarchaean – To Burn the Duck of Doubt
• Protorezoic
• 01. Siderian
• 02. Rhyacian – Untimely Meditations
• 03. Orosirian – For the Great Blue Cold Now Reigns
• 04. Statherian
• 05. Calymmian – Lake Disappointment
• 06. Ecstasian – De Profundis
• 07. Stenian – Mount Sorrow
• 08. Tonian – Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
• 09. Cryogenian

Mariusz Duda – Lunatic Soul (2008)

I’m having a hard time finding a starting point for this review, so I think I’ll just begin with some facts:

1. Mariusz Duda is the frontman of polish progressive band Riverside.
2. Lunatic Soul is the name he’s been using to release his solo albums.
3. This record is more experimental than progressive and yet more progressive than other bands that claim to be this way.
4. I’ll only be telling you about the first album from the bulk of three because, well, I’m writing this review so I can do whatever I damn please haha (XD_insert_crazy _scientist_emoticon_here)

Allright, so, you’ll do well to excuse that little outburst there, but it seems that too much sleep may cause a man to do unlikely things and act in unlikely ways, so I’m really not the one to blame. Which reminds me that I forgot to state one fact (actually, more of an omission) that elevates this album above any other bunch of albums you could think of in terms of progressive/experimental, which is:

     5. This record is devoid of ANY AND ALL electric guitars.

So I guess I’ll just skim through the tracks in a few words so that it’ll justify my ‘standing in awe for this album’:

If we disregard the first track, ‘Prebirth’, which is supposed to be an intro but it’s really just a random noise collection thrown in for a bit of acting pretentious, ‘The New Beginning’ is really the album opener. It’s mostly instrumental, short for a few vocal chants and effects that help in the progressive/experimental department. It’s a really cool track that holds a lot of sounds coming from instruments I don’t really know anything about, only that they sound awesome.

Next up is ‘Out on a Limb’, a track that’s best stands out as “Holy shit this part is really made for headbanging so I’m gonna do just that!” kind of track. BUT WAIT, you might remember from fact number 5 that this record is devoid of ANY AND ALL electric guitars, so how is that even possible? I don’t really know either, but here’s the track and you can hear for yourself this wonder.

 

The next track, ‘Summer Land’, stands as example of carefully executed percussion, as it drives the song very well, along with perfectly embedded vocal melodies and piano lines. And if you thought it can’t get any better, what comes next is really the highlight of the album, ‘Lunatic Soul’ being THE TRACK to listen to from this album. It holds probably the best transitions and buildups you can ask for and as a bonus, one of the sickest bass lines you’ll hear this side of RHCP and back.

I don’t really know why I posted that, but here’s the track. BE mindblown, I say.

 

The next one serves to calm things down a bit, seeing as it’s comprised of only four minutes of soundscape layers that keep piling up and down until they fade into ‘Near Life Experience’, a piece that works well being categorized as the jam session of the album; again many build-ups, cool transitions, this type of things.

Next we have two songs that showcase the best of Mariusz’s singing voice, the first one, ‘Adrift’, acting like a mini ballad and the second one, The Final Truth, yet again an exercise into cohesive songwriting, proof of what can be done with less (and with more, in the second half of the song).

The album ends with a dreamy outro, ‘Waiting for the Dawn’, which stands as a counter-part to ‘The New Beginning’, only it’s way cooler. Here it is, I think it does well to also stand as an ending for the review (actually I'm fresh out of funneh jokes so I'm looking for a way to escape :D).

Pros: it’s experimental, really.

Cons :  rather short; could do without the first track.

Highlights:  Out on a Limb, Lunatic Soul, The Final Truth

Rating: 9.5 

Track List

         1. Prebirth
         2. The New Beginning
         3. Out On A Limb
         4. Summerland
         5. Lunatic soul
         6. Where The Darkness Is Deepest
         7. Near Life Experience
         8. Adrift
         9. The Final Truth
        10. Waiting For The Dawn

P.S: You might argue that a bass guitar is also electric, but you know what I was really talking about. Uh-uh. You do. Yeees. You do. 

So don't.

Argue, that is.

Zulu out.

Panopticon - Kentucky (2012)

Well, this has taken me by surprise. Black metal has been fused with many things - death metal, thrash metal, crust, hardcore, j-pop, you name it - but so far no one has had the tremendous cojones of mixing it with old-timey bluegrass music.

Cue Panopticon, a one-man band from Louisville, Kentucky, whose latest album, also called Kentucky, manages to successfully marry atmospheric black metal with old fashioned Americana sensibilities, resulting in a brilliant mash-up that will surprise you with how good it actually is. The album's main focus, believe it or not, are the political and social turmoils related to the coal mining industry in XIXth century Kentucky. A strange and somewhat obscure subject, for sure, but also one that hasn't been explored in black metal, as far as I know, which makes it feel fresh and interesting. There are two main categories of songs on Kentucky: 

• Long-ass post-black metal songs that run for over 10 minutes, comprised of distant banshee screeches drowning in a sea of fuzzed-out guitar riffs with varied drumming and flutes and keyboards providing beautiful atmospherics.

• Acoustic banjo-driven working-man anthems with clean, nasal vocals, which, as far as I'm concerned, are the highlight of this album. Especially Come All Ye Coal Miners, with its energetic banjo melodies and beautiful fiddle and upright bass work. 

These two kinds of songs alternate happily on the album without the contrast between them being  too jarring. One minute you're listening to harsh black metal, then the next you're dancing on a tree stump to the sweet sounds of old fashioned bluegrass tunes. It's perfect. It's also gimmicky as fuck, but I'm willing to let that slide and enjoy the music. Kentucky is certainly one of 2012's most interesting albums and I can already picture it on my end of the year list. I can also picture the advent of more strange lyrical themes in black metal: firefighter black metal, police man black metal, sewage worker black metal, hot dog vendor black metal and also the urban black metal tag to encompass it all. Can't wait for these!

and no kfc jokes were made that day