Jonathan Hill

A Soapbox for Uninformed Opinions

Jun
16

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My Dying Bride A Line of Deathless Kings Review

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My Dying Bride A Line of Deathless Kings Review

Artist: My Dying Bride
Album: A Line of Deathless Kings
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Doom Metal
Released: 2006
Length: 61 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Peaceville Records

Track List:

01. To Remain Tombless
02. L’Amour Detruit
03. I Cannot Be Loved
04. And I Walk with Them
05. Thy Raven Wings
06. Loves Intolerable Pain
07. One of Beauty’s Daughters
08. Deeper Down
09. The Blood, the Wine, the Roses

My Dying Bride A Line of Deathless Kings Cover

A Line of Deathless Kings is the 9th melodramatic outing by English metal outfit My Dying Bride. If the band’s name and song titles weren’t obvious enough, you can expect to hear a lot of what can only be described as funeral inspired music as interpreted by a metal band. Coupled with the morose lyrics of founding member and singer Aaron Stainthorpe, it becomes quite apparent that the members of My Dying Bride have being living in perpetual misery ever since their sand castles where kicked over one too many times during their childhood.

Monolithic guitar plods are woven together with haunted but infrequent keyboard ambiance and some contrastingly speedy percussive rhythms that create an eerie yet powerful sound for A Line of Deathless Kings. The album is highly consistent and My Dying Bride only breaks character momentarily on Loves Intolerable Pain and at the end of The Blood, the Wine, the Roses to go from their usual mournful tones to delve into flashes of rage that come as quickly as they go.

My Dying Bride lives up to their subgenres namesake and the poetic lyrics will be a treat for fans of the macabre but for those wanting something to smile about are better off looking elsewhere.

Jun
2

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Children of Bodom Follow the Reaper Review

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Children of Bodom Follow the Reaper Review

Artist: Children of Bodom
Album: Follow the Reaper
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Power Metal
Released: 2000
Length: 38 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Nuclear Blast, Spine Farm

Track List:

01. Follow the Reaper
02. Bodom After Midnight
03. Children of Decadence
04. Everytime I Die
05. Mask of Sanity
06. Taste of My Scythe
07. Hate Me!
08. Northern Comfort
09. Kissing the Shadows

Children of Bodom Follow the Reaper Cover

Follow the Reaper is the 3rd album by Finnish metal quintet Child of Bodom. It shows the band stepping away from the black metal tinged sound of Something Wild and Hatebreeder to focus on traditional heavy metal offshoot speed metal and the well-established subgenre of power metal.

Vocalist and lead guitarist Alexi Laiho manages to retain his high pitched screech that makes him sound like an aggravated troll that just found out that someone has walked over his bridge. He is still impossible to understand even if the lyrics are written out in front of you. This makes you wonder if the lyrics where written just for the sake of having a vocalist as Follow the Reaper would have made for a fantastic instrumental album otherwise. This won’t be of any detriment to their fans but it will certainly ward off many other potential listeners.

The drums, bass and second guitar all find themselves in strict rhythm roles on Follow the Reaper and while the drums and guitar are easy to hear, the bass is reduced to background noise unless the listener pays close attention to it.

Children of Bodom haven’t gone through a metamorphosis in their decision to move away from their black metal influence but it is still easy to hear where their well-earned reputation stems from on Follow the Reaper. The most impressive aspects the album are the premier song-writing abilities of Alexi Laiho and the interaction between himself and keyboard player Janne Wirman. These elements are what make Follow the Reaper a staple of the Children of Bodom discography and a highlight of the metal scene upon its release.

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.

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.

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