YEAR END LIST - TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF 2013

Ok, so it's that time of year where a guy chooses his top albums of the year. I'm going with five for this. So. Here we go.

FIVE: KILLSWITCH ENGAGE - DISARM THE DESCENT

This album made the list by virtue of being a stellar, stellar comeback. Killswitch seemed to start losing their way with As Daylight Dies and hit a slump with the second self-titled (an odd choice, branding the original an EP when it's arguably one of their strongest albums). Someone's lit a fire under their asses here, though, and we see the boys return to fast, catchy songs with predictably melodic choruses ('Beyond the Flames, 'All In Due Time' being standouts), great harmonies and a renewed energy. The re-integration of Jesse Leach is a huge part of this, and no one could have filled Howard's vacant shoes better than the original owner. Live, he also does Howard's songs proud.

FOUR: CROSSFAITH - APOCALYZE

Musically, Crossfaith aren't hugely innovative. They peddle heavy electronica with metalcore, in the style of many, many bands since the mid -2000s. What they really have going for them is that their music is great fun. Songs like 'Hounds of the Apocalypse' and 'Countdown to Hell' hammer away in a way not dissimilar to Slipknot did back in 1999, we have some party tunes in 'Eclipse' and 'Gala Hala (Burn Down the Floor)', and the entire album is suffused with so much energy that you could can it and sell it as red-bull. In fact, that's exactly what Crossfaith is. Musical red bull. Now give me another can, yeah?

THREE: CHIMAIRA - CROWN OF PHANTOMS

Another 'comeback' album, though from a band that never really went away. Following the departure of most of the band, a lot of people were doubtful that Mark and Co could deliver the goods with a new album. He took that as a challenge, and went on to smash every doubt with a sledgehammer. The new Chimaira is a lurching, grooving riff machine, and the sound works well for the band. The songs are crunchy, to the point, and rarely faff about with showboating, although each new member shows that they have exactly what it takes to do this band's legacy proud. Plus my name kind of made it into the liner notes, so, y'know.

TWO: TESSERACT - ALTERED STATE

Yeah, a non-metal album made it onto my list. "But TesseracT are metal!" I hear you cry. They were, once. They've moved beyond the genre since their nascent days, though. In place of the usual distorted, djenting crunches are ambient soundscapes, open, echoing chords. In place of the mixed clean and gruff vocals are now soaring melodic vocals, and only those. The album itself plays out as four movements which are broken into individual tracks. And it's really hard to pick any highlights from it due to this, though the single 'Nocturne' is an obvious choice, with the massive chorus and ridiculous bridge.

ONE: SOILWORK - THE LIVING INFINITE

Predictably for those who know me, 'The Living Infinite' made it to #1. How could it not? This album is so very nearly flawless, having only one track in twenty that I didn't get on with. Irresistible melodies, crazy drumming, awesome, Swedish dual-lead riffs... It's everything an album needs to be, everything an album should be. How many bands lose their primary songwriter and go on to write the best album of their career? How many can do so after the prior album was so good? Not many, that's for sure. But Soilwork have somehow managed it, and if you disagree, then you have to be a singularly joyless fuck. This is easily the best album I've heard this year, if not in years.

ALBUM REVIEW: Sabaton - 'Carolus Rex'

The moments when you discover a band whose music you really 'click' with are few and far between. A sojourn back home to Weymouth introduced me to Sabaton, and after a few months I picked up their three most recent albums.

Sweden is great. The countryside is beautiful, there are karps in the canals, men in turquoise hotpants carrying bin bags of questionable nature here and there, and sometimes a giant Dutchman will appear and cuddle a tumbledryer (these are all factual, by the way). But what I love Sweden for more than anything is the music scene.

You can probably tell from the artwork that this album is very, very Swedish. In fact, it's a concept disc about the rise and fall of the Swedish Empire in the 16-1700s. Each song plays part of the story, progressing in a linear fashion, cataloging the key events from various perspectives.

Now, if you have any passing familiarity with this band, you'll know that they're a bit cheesy and a lot ridiculous. That's their appeal. The songs are all grandiose, singalong anthems, and this album continues that trend, refining it so that the rapid power metal style they tend towards is expanded. They've done ballads before, but nothing quite on the level that they do here ('A Lifetime of War', 'The Carolean's Prayer').

The album also comes in differing languages. I have the English and Swedish ones (yup, both). The versions cover roughly similar territories, with the points of view changing depending on the song ('A Lifetime of War' is a general diatribe about the pointless waste of life that came with the Thirty Years' War, whereas 'En Livsted i Krig (the Swedish version) handles the soldier wondering if he'll see his family again).

The quality of each song is great, too. It's very hard to pick standouts because of the bar each one sets, but personal favourites include 'The Lion from the North', 'The Carolean's Prayer' and 'Carolus Rex', which has to be one of the most ominous sounding tracks I've heard of late.

If you don't know this band, or this album, I'd suggest you check it out. I'm now planning to try and see them live at some stage.

10/10

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW: Adversary - 'Singularity'

I've been meaning to do a review of this album for a little while now. Having listened to it again a few times over the last couple weeks, I fathomed now was the time.

So. It's a ten-track disc that I first picked up in October 2010. I picked it up entirely off of the strength of the only video the band seem to have made off of the album, which is the title track 'Singularity'. I don't know if they're still a functioning band right now; this album dropped in 2009 or so (I think) and the last update we had was in 2011, cryptically saying 'people still like us?' and then 'we're in hiding'. If they are defunct, it'd be a damn shame. I suspect that the name Trustkill may have something to do with this.

The album starts off high energy and stays that way pretty much throughout. Vicious riffs, meaty bass, and an avalanche of speedy double kick bring in the first track, 'Hedonist', which pretty much showcases what the band are about: riffs, melodic leads, searing gruff vocals and soaring clean singing. The choruses are catchy as fuck without sounding forced, and will leave a man singing along for days on end. Lyrical topics are typically metal, focusing on overcoming self doubt, denouncing religion and how man is dependent on possessions. We even get a drinking song (In Vino Veritas - "pull up a can and fuck the bullshit!"). Each song is nicely distinctive from the next, and there's little to no track blending, so once you've learned which track has which name, you can instantly say which one it is without looking to the CD case.

The entire album sounds great as well - the production is tight, dense and leaves nothing unsaid by any performer (including the bassist). The only issue with any of it is during closer 'Wisdom in Regret', on which the snare seems to be largely absent. A shame, because the song rips it up.

This is a proper metal album, and I really hope we get another from these lads soon.

9/10

ALBUM REVIEW: Chimaira - Crown of Phantoms

So! A new Chimaira album. Always an exciting time. But also quite an important one for the band who have had a lot to prove since their last disc, 'The Age of Hell' came out in 2011. This is, as you'll have guessed, to do with the lineup changes that came over the last few years.

A lot of people have been saying it'll suck purely because no Rob/Matt combo on guitars. The band have (understandably) been saying 'fuck the haters, this is who we are now'. The question is, is it still Chimaira? Mark Hunter assured us it would be. And handily, it is. 'Crown of Phantoms' sounds exactly like a Chimaira album usually does. Like Chimaira. Because it's by Chimaira, presumably.

So, the band now consists of Mark, alongside new (at least in the studio) members Beard, Euphemism, Nuts, Dairy and Poland. The first thing you notice is that the juddering, Fear Factory-esque riff/kick patterns are largely gone. The band have put away the precision drill and replaced it with a sledgehammer - a BIG fucking sledgehammer. The album lurches from song to song, less worried about impressing us with technicality and more concerned with bludgeoning you until all that's left is blood, which ironically is the name of the first single. Planning ahead guys, A+ for that!

I opted to contribute to the campaign for the disc and got the extended Fan Edition, which comes with a hefty wallop of extra tracks, including a re-working of 'The Dehumanizing Process' from 2003's 'The Impossiblity of Reason'. It's a lot slower than the original, and a lot heavier for it. It's hard to pick individual tracks to highlight, although title track is one of my favourites.

My criticisms are few, the main one being that the kick drum feels a little soft for a disc with this much kick drum. It would have been nice to have a punchier, 'metal' kick sound. I wasn't hugely keen on the remix of 'Wrapped in Violence' either, but then electronic remixes aren't really my thing.

To conclude, the album is definitely Chimaira, through and through. And it's a good one, so don't be a dick about the last two years and go buy the damn thing already.

9/10

ALBUM REVIEW: Means End - The Didact

Sometimes I find a relatively unknown and obscure band through the medium of online music blogs, and like them enough to buy an album. This is one of those situations, so many thanks to the guys at heavyblogisheavy for turning me on to these guys.

The wait for the album was relatively long, being that they're an independent and unsigned band. The parcel came, handwritten and hand posted, too. All very impressive so far, especially when you consider that Robin Portnoff did the artwork (and a lot of it too).

The music is the key here, though, so how do I summarise this band? Quite easily. They're djent-jazz-choir-core, obviously. No, but they've very tough to pigeonhole beyond 'progressive metal'. The band tend to eschew the usual verse-chorus-bridge format, instead following a flow through each song and refusing to drag the tracks out overlong. The only real comparison I can think of is TesseracT, in that Means End are more a band using texture and modd over dazzling technicality, although there are some very impressive performances from each of the four members. No overplaying or showboating, just playing for the song. We even get some jangly blaxploitation moments. When the guitar is playing a lead, the bass will come in and fill the sonic gap. Meaty.

The vocals are especially impressive, with singer Rob Luciani displaying perhaps a more impressive range than Christian Alvestam, and a voice that seems inherently more powerful. His growls are meaty and enunciated, his cleans are soaring and epic. He's also done a good series on how to improve vocally.

On the first iteration of this review, I griped slightly about lack of separation between songs around the midpoint of the album. In retrospect this was unfair; I was simply not listening closely enough, not paying the music the attention it deserves. Each track is a diverse maze of ideas that have been woven together, from the headbanging crunch of 'Omega Barrier', to the dreamy haze of 'Aeronaut' to the blast-laden 'Sun Wukong'. Lyrically, the album is as complex as the compositions, which is a nice treat.

I have to amend my original rating of 7/10 as well; it's a rare debut that brings all these factors together in a coherent package that you don't tire of.

9/10

ALBUM REVIEW: Chthonic - Bú-Tik

Chthonic are one of the more unique bands I listen to, with their Oriental synths and indeed their usage of actual Oriental instruments such as the erhu and dizi. I ordered the new disc off of Amazon and handily it came with a lossless MP3 format version of the album for me to listen to ahead of the disc coming.



So what's new with this album? Not much, really. The band have really just expanded and continued from the last disc, Takasago Army, with the overall production being very similar in sound (the only notable difference here is that Dani Wang's kicks sound less like he's using round wooden beaters and more like he's using flat wooden beaters... If you're a drummer you'll get it). The band have even stated that this is the case, and it lends the album a great clarity. Nothing gets in the way, and everything is where it should be in the mix.

The concept on the record is 'an armed body and mind' - well, the disc certainly doesn't waste time in using said armaments to pummel you silly. We have a gentle intro and outro, betwixt which lay eight tracks of ferocious and melodic music. There's no dazzling technicality going on here, with each performer playing what the song needs and nothing more. To be fair, if anyone overplayed, it'd spoil things a little bit. So bravo on that front, chaps and chapette.

The standout tracks for me personally were 'Supreme Pain for the Tyrant', 'Sail into the Sunset's Fire', 'Rage of my Sword' and 'Defenders of Bú-Tik Palace'. The latter of these tracks builds up through one of the most powerful crescendos that I've heard in recent years. I can only imagine what this would be like to see live, which I hope to do at some stage.

Lyrically, I have no clue what's going on, though. I'll have to wait until the physical copy lands to comment, as darklyrics have the Taiwanese lyrics (which I obviously can't read) and all I've been able to find are the literal translations which make no sense whatsoever (I sincerely doubt that 'Sword chop chop corrupt official' is an intended translation) so we'll see. I'm expecting a lot of political dissent, though.

About the only criticism I can level against the disc is the outro 'Undying Rearmament' - whilst it's a nice piece, I kind of feel that using 'Defenders of Bú-Tik Palace' would have been a much stronger way to close the album off. It's a minor niggle, though, and not one that's put me off having the disc on repeat.

8/10

ALBUM REVIEW: TesseracT - Altered State

Off of the back of the recent live performance at Sheffield Corporation (and also payday), I picked this album up. I've owned One for a few months and found it quite a challenging record to understand and get into. Taking the plunge into Altered State seemed like a risk, but with the convincing show that the lads put on, a risk worth taking.

So how have they changed since the first album? Firstly, the harsh vocals are gone. Not lessened, not scaled back, gone entirely. And there's not a moment on the album that feels like it calls for them, either. New lad Ashe has a wide melodic register, though he tends to gravitate towards the higher end of the spectrum.

The album is very, very chilled out. There aren't many headbanging moments (if any) from the first listen, and the riffs seem written more to send your head on an astral trip than flying around in the physical plane anyway. The disc takes place across four movements and ten tracks, following a three/two formula. The movements are 'Of Matter', 'Of Mind', 'Of Reality' and 'Of Energy', and move less as individial songs than as larger compositions in the vein of songs like 'A Change of Seasons' or the 'Concealing Fate' suite from One. The blending of songs actually gives a nice feeling of continuity except in a few places during 'Of Mind'.

There's even a saxophone in there on a couple of tracks. I had read about this but it was still unexpected and hit me like a surprise roshambo. Nice.

As an added bonus, the version I bought comes with an instrumental disc containing all tracks sans vocals so you can do some karaoke. This was a total ballache to get onto media player but that's another story.

Overall this is a really nicely written album, chilled and with an overlying feel of introspection to it. Not music for when you're pissed off, but music to calm down with and relax to.

8/10

EP REVIEW - Crossfaith - Zion EP

Crossfaith were the surprise discovery of 2012 for me. Finding them via Impericon and the enjoyment of bands such as Silent Descent, Mask of Virtue and Blood Stain Child, they seemed like they would likely be a band I would enjoy a good deal. I picked up the album 'The Dream, The Space' prior to 'Zion' and was interested to see how the band have evolved between releases.

Beginning with the dark and crushing 'Monolith', the EP immediately tries to beat the listener into submission via distorted synths, downtuned guitars and double kick drums. There are no melodic vocals on this release - the closest we get are hardcore shouts - and while frontman Kenta Koie is hardly unique in his delivery, he performs with enough conviction that it doesn't matter. The EP then surges through the machine-gun rave assault of 'Photosphere', slowing down again for the lady's drink 'Jagerbomb'. Hey, we all know real men swig Jager from the fucking bottle.

Both 'Jagerbomb' and 'Quasar' feature some pretty hefty breakdowns, which would leave the EP feeling somewhat generic if not for the synths, which feature as the sole instrument in 'Dialogue'. They work extremely well with the music - somewhat like a really heavy Enter Shikari / Silent Descent lovechild - in 95% of the music. The only time they slip up is during closer 'Leviathan' where the sample of steel drums feels extremely out of place.

As a rule though, the songs are well composed and to the point (the EP clocks in at just over 20 minutes) so it's a mile-a-minute adrenaline rush. Hardened tech-death-grind fuckers will probably hate this, and in honesty with the current glut of 'synth-core' bands, it's not the most original music you'll hear this year.

Then again when music is this fun and energetic, you just don't fucking care.

8/10