Reviews

9/10

Visions are a very British Metal band. Their debut full length ‘Home’ combines elements of the best of British Metal since the turn of the century in a style which is tasteful, emotive and dynamic; somewhere between early Architects and SikTh but perhaps with hints of other European bands like Gojira. These elements are so cleverly fused together that despite the obvious influence of their fellow-countrymen the music feels fresh, new and original, without stepping on anybody else’s toes.

So what is this style? Clever, intricate riffs mixing chugs and sweeps in challenging time signatures and emotive chord sequences. All done in a subtle way that makes the music sound much more simple than it is. A perfect example of this is the 4th track on the album ‘Dissident’. On the first listen this song sounds like it’s in 4/4 time but with a more careful listen a number of strange and interesting time signatures are being swapped around and traded for one another. This is a testament to the band’s songwriting ability and honesty. Visions aren’t using strange time signatures just because it’s cool right now. They’re writing catchy and interesting riffs which happen to be in these unconventional meters.

Transitions are also an important part of this album. Rather than putting one distinct riff after another, Opeth style, Visions create variations on their riffs, melodies and chord sequences which allows the music to progress naturally. This is literally the definition of progressive and its super-effective.

Production on the album is clear and crisp but fairly quiet. This though, can be easily remedied with a tweak of the volume. Both the heavy and melodic sections are mixed perfectly to complement one another. Important layers are prominent but complimentary details are there to be picked out and reward repeated listens. The production on this album also avoids a common problem in the world of technical and progressive metal. When metal drummers start playing ghost notes on the snare and stop playing single stroke rolls a lot is lost in production due to over-compression and the relative volume of the other instruments. The way this album is mixed every detail of what the drummer is doing can be clearly picked out. This is hugely refreshing for a drummer nerd like myself and improves the overall sound of the whole album.

With a unique style, progressive and immersive song-writing and near-flawless production ‘Home’ is without a doubt one of the strongest metal releases of 2011 and hopefully a sign that the UK will continue to produce outstanding technical and progressive metal for years to come.

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PRINT THIS POST WORDS: 5/13/12 — 3:48pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZhrtuvLQGIHp Filed under: #Visions #Home #Progressive Metal #UK Metal #Bascik Records #Album Review

**Album Review** Protest the Hero - ‘Scurrilous’

6/10

Protest the Hero occupy a very fond place in a certain kind of metal fan’s heart. It’s common knowledge that the band take their instruments more seriously than themselves and self-consciously stand a few steps away from the rest of the metal community. They don’t look like a metal band, they don’t talk like a metal band and a lot of the time they don’t sound like a metal band. Far from alienating fans this has actually given Protest the Hero a more dedicated fan base than most other bands of similar commercial success can reasonably hope for.

Their first two albums; Kezia and Fortress established the band as leaders in a mass migration of nerdy Metal fans away from long hair and black t-shirts to more socially acceptable and less embarrassing styles of dress and attitude. Although part of this migration is due to the growing influence of Metalcore on today’s Metal scene it is impossible to separate the shift in attitude and appearance from the rise of Progressive Metal nice guys like Protest the Hero and Between the Buried and Me.

The band’s third album Scurrilous combines the fast pace of their debut with the epic scale and variation of their sophomore Fortress, trading alternating heavy and melodic sections for a more balanced style which is played consistently for the length of the record. Though the style the band have developed for this release is certainly unique and the song-writing is more fluid and smooth than ever, it lacks both the chill and wow factors of Fortress. There are few moments on this album which make you drop what you’re doing and listen. It’s almost as though in combining the multiple styles which were laid side by side in their previous albums they averaged out and limited their impact.

Although all the songs on this album are well written and catchy, average is definitely the best word to describe Scurrilous. ‘Hair Trigger’ is really the only standout track with every other song sounding more or less the same. That said though, it is an astonishingly good song.

The relative lack of dynamics in the song-writing on this album is matched by the production. The guitar tone is over-compressed and boring and the drums feel dead and lifeless. The vocals too fail to cut through the guitars the way they did on Kezia and Fortress. However one positive note with regards to production is the bass. In a refreshing move for a Metal band, Protest the Hero have made the bass on this album audible and taken it from a mere supporting role to an interesting part of the instrumentation of each song.

Despite everything I’ve said about Scurrilous’s less than spectacular song writing and production, this isn’t a bad album. As a follow up to an album as interesting and dynamic as Fortress it is disappointing but if any other band had released these ten songs I would be praising their ingenuity. It is this contrast between Fortress and Scurrilous which makes this album so difficult to give a numerical rating. As a Protest the Hero album I have to give it a 5 or 6 out of 10 but as a stand alone release, listening double blind that rises to a definite 7. In the end I have to take into consideration the context in which this album has been released and in which almost everyone who buys it will listen to it, as a follow up to an incredible second album. In that context I give Scurrilous a 6 out of 10 but I’m not happy about it.

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PRINT THIS POST WORDS: Notes: 4 5/12/12 — 5:35pm Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZhrtuvLMY8a1 Filed under: #Protest the Hero #Progressive Metal #Canada #Scurrilous #Album Review

**Album Review** Structures - ‘Divided By’

6/10

There’s a problem a lot of people have in the Djent scene. It’s something people don’t really like to talk about; they’re embarrassed about it and think they’re the only ones but it’s actually a very common problem and you can find it in almost any style of music. The problem is this: you like a few Djenty Metalcore or Deathcore bands like Born of Osiris, Veil Of Maya or After The Burial and want to find more without wading through the vast sewers of unoriginal medio-core. I’m not going to name names, anybody reading this review will be aware of the kind of bands I’m talking about. Bad Deathcore bands with twangy syncopated sections they think make them Djent. As the Djent sound becomes more widely accepted it’s begun seeping into other genres without bands deliberately trying to incorporate ‘Djenty bits’ into their music. Stam1na, the Finnish Thrash-Metal-kinda band have a few syncopated djenty sounding riffs in their new material; Iwrestledabearonce have more than a hint of the poly-groove about them in their latest album and unfortunately instead of dying a natural death, Deathcore has begun adding low pitch, syncopated grooves to its repertoire of breakdowns and… breakdowns.

Sumeriancore used to be a useful tag to describe the good bands with genuinely interesting Djent riffs and more creative Deathcore breakdowns but since Asking Alexandria and Lower than Atlantis became successful Sumerian Records have become more associated with annoying scene kids than with creative and interesting Djenty-Deathcore. Now shuffling through Sumerian Records’ Youtube uploads you find Veil of Maya mixed in with bands like Upon a Burning Body. Upon a Burning Body are perhaps more annoying than Asking Alexandria in that the video-single for their latest album “Red, White, Green” features a very catchy, low tuned, syncopated riff. This riff actually motivated me to buy their album. Big mistake. The rest of this album could be described as ‘Partycore’, ‘Brocore’ or my personal favourite ‘Douchebagcore’. It’s unoriginal, uninteresting and to be honest pretty embarrassing to listen to. So that’s the problem. Syncopated riffs with a djenty tone are becoming a standard feature of the Deathcore genre and this makes it difficult to find genuinely interesting Deathcore-Djent hybrids. And you thought I wasn’t going to name names.

Fortunately though there are still a number of good Djenty-Deathcore bands on Sumerian records and Structures is one of them. What Structures offer is very different from Veil of Maya, Born of Osiris and After the Burial. Veil of Maya offer a fairly straightforward Melodic Death Metal inspired version of Deathcore but with thoughtful riffs and polymetric grooves; Born of Osiris are more focussed on layers and melody while After the Burial are full on groove. Structures, however, offer a manic, intense and frantic listening experience. Ironically, song structure doesn’t really exist in this album but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. There are primitive Hardcore riffs in odd time signatures, breakdowns which are actually well thought out and interesting, syncopated djent riffs and chaotic transitions. All of these follow one after the other in a seemingly random order but it all seems to fit together nicely.

The album begins with a massive breakdown and some creepy guitar melodies in the background. There are deep death growls as well as higher pitched screams and shouts. This is a standard Deathcore opener but it’s catchy and a lot more interesting than other Deathcore ‘intro’ tracks following the same formula.

The second track and first proper ‘song’ is ‘Hydroplaning’. Every feature I described earlier is present on this track. There are breakdowns, syncopation, disorienting transitions and primitive Hardcore riffs. For me this is one of the two standout tracks on the album, the other being ‘Clockwork’. It’s difficult to articulate what is different about this track or indeed the entire album which makes it so much better than other Deathcore music with a Djenty inclination. The closest I can get to pinpointing what makes it so much better is simply quality. You can tell that a lot of thought has been put into the breakdowns and riffs on this album, where other bands may just take a random jerky rhythm and stick it in the middle of a track as a breakdown these guys seem to have put some effort into coming up with interesting breakdowns which actually add to the song rather than filling a hole in a song which listeners now expect to be filled with a breakdown.

The next few tracks follow in a similar fashion but a few highlights include a very interesting riff found in the middle of‘Paralyzed’ which seems to appear out of nowhere and then disappear just when you figure out when to nod your head and the surprisingly good clean vocals at the end of the same track. In a scene where clean vocals are almost always controversial and divisive it seems pointless to spend much time talking about them so I will say only this; if you don’t like the kind of clean vocals found in most ‘core’ bands you will probably find parts of this album totally unlistenable. If, however, you can get past the cleans you will be rewarded as the clean sections are genuinely interesting and provide a nice break from the chaos of the rest of the album.

The next standout track is ‘Clockwork’. The formula for this song is roughly the same as the previous tracks until about halfway through when we are given a treat. Alex Erian of Despised Icon and Ion Dissonance’s Kevin McCaughey provide guest vocals. Rather than just screaming a few lines over a few bars which could be from any other song on the album, half the song is dominated by riffs that show a very clear Despised Icon influence. This is a fantastic example of the attention to detail which is present on this album. The guest appearances are so well thought out it just has to make you smile when you hear it.

The following track “Relapse; Signs.” also features guest vocals, this time from Frankie Palmeri of Emmure. Again, when the guest vocals come in the music is tailored to fit the vocalist with an Emmure inspired section filling the last 20 seconds of the track.
Two more similar tracks follow until we get to the album’s finale and title track “/” unfortunately this song just doesn’t do it for me. It begins with clean vocals and a section which is just a little too ‘pop-punk’ for my and probably most people reading this review’s taste. After this rather annoying beginning the track continues unspectacularly with the same format as the previous tracks. I have to admit, I was expecting something rather more impressive to make up for the disappointing start to the song and when the song and album came to an end I did feel cheated by the title track. Nevertheless in subsequent playthroughs of the album I treated “I.N.T.E.N.T” as the final track and it was a much more satisfying, if abruptly ended, listen.

Overall this album is good but not great. Though the chaotic song-structure suits the combination of styles Structures are presenting I found that after a while it became too chaotic and aside from “Hydroplaning”, “Clockwork” and the disappointing “/” it is almost impossible to remember the title of the song you are listening too because the distillation of riffs into different songs is so arbitrary. Another criticism of this album is the muddy production. Everything sounds a little bit fuzzy and unclear, this could be deliberate to compliment the chaotic song structure but I think it goes a little too far and makes the music unnecessarily difficult to keep up with.

Despite these criticisms Structures are clearly a thoughtful and technically talented group of musicians and given time and experience I’m convinced they will acknowledge and learn from the weaknesses of their debut full-length and release a follow up to “Divided By” which will win over many of their detractors.

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PRINT THIS POST WORDS: 5/12/12 — 11:53am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZhrtuvLLMGr9 Filed under: #Structures #Divided by #Djent #Sumerian Records #Album Review #Metalcore #Sumeriancore

**Album Review** Uneven Structure - ‘Februus’

8/10

Djent is often criticized for being unoriginal, uncreative and lacking variety. Its critics point to the mass of copycat bands that sound a little too much like Meshuggah and compare the scene/genre/style to Deathcore which exploded just as suddenly and has already begun its decline back into obscurity. These critics are wrong. Djent detractors from outside the scene/genre/style frequently fall into the same trap that non-Metal fans do when making generalizations about any form of Metal music. To the outsider all Metal sounds pretty much the same, Black Metal, Death Metal, Deathcore, Djent, Nu-Metal; it’s all just angry, aggressive noise. Likewise to those outside the Djent scene/genre/style Djent is all downtuned, syncopated staccato riffs with the occasional ambient interlude. What they fail to notice are the distinct styles being developed within the Djent scene. It’s most obvious in the case of Sumeriancore. Bands like After The Burial, Veil Of Maya and Born of Osiris really do not sound much like TesseracT or Monuments. Ambidjent is another offshoot created by the likes of Cloudkicker and Chimp Spanner. A more recent breakaway is Thall. The style Vildhjarta have developed is darker and more aggressive than any other Djent we’ve heard so far and more importantly, it’s dark and aggressive in a different way. The other style I want to point out is what I call Melodjent. The first band to really use this style were Tesseract, there’s also Modern Day Babylon and (finally) Uneven Structure.

Februus has been accused of sounding too much like Tesseract and I do hear what people are talking about but I put it down to the two bands developing their styles in a similar direction rather than outright plagiarism. Uneven Structure have developed a style which slips easily between thick, dense ambiance and crisp, defined Djenty riffage. The ambient parts of the album are well placed and the atmosphere is three dimensional, it surrounds the listener and draws them into the music. Heavier sections are often introduced slowly like rays of light, peeking through the ambient fog. At other times, polyrythmic grooves cut straight through the calm. These riffs really catch your attention and they are the ones that will get stuck in your head and have you tapping (albeit inaccurately) on your lap, desk or chair for days.

Although the syncopated grooves are what grab the listener’s attention this album does not feel heavy. Throughout the album I found myself forgetting I was listening to a Metal band at all. The swirling ambiance sows together a number of subtle styles which take several listens to really appreciate or even notice. There are slow, emotional, post-hardcore style chords and subtle but incredibly groovy percussive sections that reveal more and more detail with each listen. While earlier in the review I described the album as ‘Melodjent’, many styles of Djent are present on this album. There are Sumerian breakdowns and a fair smattering of Thall to be found as well as Ambidjent reminiscent of Cloudkicker. This is a perfect album to convert those who say Djent lacks variety.

You’ll have noticed I haven’t mentioned any song titles or track numbers in this review and that is for a reason. The division of the tracks on this album seems pretty arbitrary, there aren’t really songs it’s just one long piece of music with different motifs separated by ambient noise. This is not a criticism, in fact I’m certain this is what the band intended. Februus is, after all, a concept album and should be treated as such, not as a collection of individual songs.

However, despite the mix of different styles, the infectious grooves and immersive atmosphere, the album can feel slightly too long. The ambiance can grow a little tiresome and the contrast loses its strength after a while. The vocals also may not be to everyone’s taste but that is such a personal preference, one that will probably be fiercely debated by Djent fans for years to come, that I won’t factor that into my rating of the album as a whole.

Overall Februus is a landmark release for Djent and an immersive as well as intense experience for the listener. Uneven Structure have done themselves proud and earned their place in the upper echelons of the scene with a distinct style and approach to a genre which continues to innovate and expand.

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PRINT THIS POST WORDS: 5/12/12 — 11:48am Short URL: http://tmblr.co/ZhrtuvLLLGfX Filed under: #Uneven Structure #Februus #Album Review #Djent #Basick Records