Jonathan Hill

A Soapbox for Uninformed Opinions

May
12

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

Artist: Behold the Arctopus
Album: Skullgrid
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Progressive Metal
Released: 2007
Length: 34 minutes
Language(s): N/A
Label(s): Black Market Activities

Track List:

01. Skullgrid
02. Canada
03. Of Cursed Womb
04. You Are Number Six
05. Some Mist
06. Scepters
07. Transient Exuberance

Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Cover

Behold the Arctopus’ Skullgrid will either leave you in awe of the bands musical abilities or recovering from a throbbing headache. If you do manage to get passed the intense musical acrobatics of Skullgrid you’ll quickly find that there isn’t much left to intrigue you with beyond that.

It’s nearly impossible to absorb and remember any of Skullgrid because no part of any song is present for more than a few seconds before it changes into something else. There are some strong moments but they are scattered throughout the album and get lost between the meandering instrumental passages on either side of them.

Canada is probably the most coherent song on Skullgrid with the opening segment being repeated a handful of times at seemingly random intervals, making it at least partially memorable. Song lengths vary greatly on Skullgrid with the title track being just over a minute long, You Are Number Six clocking in at 9 minutes and the other 5 songs going from 3 to 7 minutes in length.

There is easily enough material on Skullgrid to be fleshed out into multiple full length albums but instead you will hear Behold the Arctopus play every guitar scale, drum pattern and rhythm under the sun packed into a brief 34 minutes. The trio have technical abilities in spades but they would rather show off said abilities instead of crafting a series well thought out instrumental songs.

Skullgrid can best be likened to masturbation: self-indulgent, messy and no one else should have to hear about it.

May
5

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

Artist: Team Sleep
Album: Team Sleep
Genre(s): Electronic, Rock
Subgenres(s): Trip Hop, Trip Rock
Released: 2005
Length: 54 minutes
Language(s): English, French
Label(s): Maverick Records

Track List:

01. Ataraxia
02. Ever (Foreign Flag)
03. Your Skull is Red
04. Princeton Review
05. Blvd. Nights
06. Delorian
07. Our Ride to the Rectory
08. Tomb of Liegia
09. Elizabeth
10. Staring at the Queen
11. Ever Since WWI
12. King Diamond
13. Live from the Stage
14. Paris Arm
15. 11/11

Team Sleep Team Sleep Cover

Team Sleep is the self-titled debut album and end result of an extensive collaborative project that manages to pull together a myriad of influences ranging from shoegaze, post rock, dream pop, instrumental hip hop and glitch music. When combined, these influences are used to create a low key trip hop/trip rock album that focuses on ambience and textures with an experimental edge rather than big choruses or flashy instrumental leads.

The trip hop/trip rock songs that make up about 2/3 of the album are abruptly broken up by the more experimental and challenging songs littered through the track listing. The post rock/shoegaze styling of Your Skull is Red and Blvd. Nights will make you feel like you’re being swept under by a tidal wave of noise.

In contrast, the hip hop and glitch inspired song Staring at the Queen features programmed percussion that clangs around like a lumbering machine and is rounded off with skipping and looping effects in an effort to make it sound as dysfunctional as possible. King Diamond on the other hand uses samples of Chino Moreno and Mary Timony to create an odd spoken word collage with a similar musical style. While arguably not the highlights of Team Sleep, they are certainly memorable.

Paris Arm is a straightforward love song that is unexpectedly sung entirely in French by Sandy Lakdar, who is not credited in the album booklet but does get mentioned on the Team Sleep homepage. It is also one of the shortest songs on the album, only outstretching the interlude Delorian by 9 seconds.

While the brooding ambiance makes Team Sleep a suitable soundtrack for the small hours, the noisy post-rock/shoegaze and glitchy hip hop inspired songs will provide enough variation to stop the songs from running together.

Apr
28

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Cryptopsy None So Vile Review

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Cryptopsy None So Vile Review

Artist: Cryptopsy
Album: None So Vile
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Death Metal
Released: 1996
Length: 32 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Wrong Again, reissued on Displeased Records and Century Media Records

Track List:

01. Crown of Horns
02. Slit Your Guts
03. Graves of the Fathers
04. Dead and Dripping
05. Benedictine Convulsions
06. Phobophile
07. Lichmistress
08. Orgiastic Disembowelment

Cryptopsy None So Vile Cover

None So Vile is an unyielding auditory terror created by Canadian death metal masters Cryptopsy. The album features troglodyte impressionist Dan Greening (better known by his stage name Lord Worm) whose polarising vocal performance consists of grunts, growls and howls that make the lyrics entirely undecipherable. His performance will leave the eyebrows of the uninitiated permanently raised.

The most memorable performance on None So Vile is provided by drummer Flo Mounier, who hammers away relentlessly at an inhuman speed with unnerving endurance. His playing often takes centre stage but guitarist Jon Levasseur steps into the spotlight to take the lead role occasionally and plays some short but infrequent solos between it all.

Bassist Eric Langlois is hardly heard through Cryptopsy’s 32 minute cacophony. He does manage to make some distinct appearances during the bridges of some songs and can be heard clearly on parts of Slit Your Guts and Benedictine Convulsions. Cryptopsy manages to soften up for the better part of 35 seconds to play a calm solo piano piece on Phobophile. It gives your ears just enough time to recover before the band gives in to temptation and resume their aural bombardment duties.

While there aren’t any lacklustre songs on None So Vile, Cryptopsy doesn’t change their sound much from song to song. Instead the band relies on their technical abilities to make the songs distinct from one another. None So Vile lives up to its name and delivers on all accounts. It will be loved or hated by the listener without much room for a grey area but as far as death metal goes, it has certainly become a staple of the subgenre.

Apr
23

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Device Device Review

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Device Device Review

Artist: Device
Album: Device
Genre(s): Rock
Subgenres(s): Hard Rock
Released: 2013
Length: 40 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Warner Bros. Records

Track List:

01. You Think You Know
02. Penance
03. Vilify
04. Close My Eyes Forever (feat. Lzzy Hale) (Lita Ford Cover)
05. Out of Line (feat. Serj Tankian & Geezer Butler)
06. Hunted
07. Opinion (feat. Tom Morello)
08. War of Lies
09. Haze (feat. M. Shadows)
10. Through it All (feat. Glenn Hughes)

Device Device Cover

Device is the new collaborative project started by Disturbed frontman David Draiman and former Filter guitarist Geno Lenardo. The sound can best be described as a continuation of where Disturbed left off with Asylum, only with a return of the electronic effects reminiscent of The Sickness while performing under a new moniker.

Song-writing ultimately remains the same as what you would expect from Disturbed but with a few small deviations. Hunted is the most obvious song to point at for the new bands experimentation. It has Device jumping into the deep end of the pool as they infused slow, ominous electronic segments with louder guitar passages that makes it a credit to the album. If this fusion was a common element in Devices debut, it would definitely bring the album into its own.

Device features a multitude of guest performers with perhaps the most memorable being Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), who performs a duet with Draiman on their cover of Lita Fords Close My Eye Forever. While faithful to the original song that featured Ozzy Osbourne, Device injects their personality into the song to give a fresh take on it that prevents them from cloning the original.

Devices debut will probably be a hit amongst hardcore Disturbed fans after they went on hiatus in 2011. Unfortunately not enough has been done with Device to step out of the shadow of Disturbed sans the occasional flirtation with the electronic elements.

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