Sunday, 28 July 2013

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

Monday, 8 July 2013

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