Suspyre - Suspyre (2012)

Band: Suspyre
Country: Flemington, New Jersey
Style: Symphonic/Progressive Metal
Label: Impulse Music

I've never claimed to be the biggest fan of what I guess could be considered "traditional" prog metal, so this review may seem a bit strange to some. Having been brought up listening to power, symphonic, and prog metal I guess I can consider myself lucky that I got a good education in that stuff early on so I've really been able to find some diamonds in the rough that still manage to intrigue myself. Suspyre is one of the few bands that I've kept from those days when all I listened to was power metal (not that they're really a power metal band).
As someone who grew up listening to prog-metal, I'd like to think that I know a thing or two about a good portion of bands that play within that genre. Having heard dozens of groups who sound like Dream Theater, I have to say that even though I am a Dream Theater fan, I do happen to prefer bands that are doing their own thing as oppose to simply ripping them off. Suspyre is obviously one of those bands that falls into that category. While there are obvious links to the likes of Dream Theater, as well as the likes of Symphony X and even old Fates Warning, there's still a much higher degree of originality that Suspyre have that allows them to stand out from their peers. In a sense, I'm almost more likely to compare Suspyre to a band like Green Carnation than any of the bands I just mentioned, at least for a couple of tracks on here.
Probably the most noticeable thing that made Suspyre stand out to me were their tendencies to break out into a more tech/math metal sort of section or just go into more of a fusion type of part at the drop of a hat. Sure, there's plenty of technical riffs and playing in the prog-metal world already, but it's rare that I hear bands from that scene embrace the likes of Meshuggah or Dillinger Escape Plan (I don't actually know if the band sites either as influences) in ways that make any sort of difference in their sound. In addition to that, they have the more symphonic aspect, which again isn't all that original an idea, but it's never overpowering or dominating the rest of the instrumentation and instead plays a more atmospheric role, most of the time anyway, and adds a more classy air to these songs. The fusion of these two ideas, along with a prog-metal backbone, naturally allows the band to sound a lot more interesting than a lot of their peers because they have the potential to just go into a freak out part that is more spastic while still retaining very melodic song structures. I actually didn't remember the band being as wild as this on previous albums, but listening back they have always had those moments in their songs. But, probably the song that sticks out on this album the most, perhaps surprisingly, is the short little Cancún, which sticks out like a sore thumb on here. I'm tempted to call this the "ballad" of the album, even though it's by no means a ballad, it just seems like the sort of song that would get lighters out when the band is playing live to me. Unlike it's more metallic counterparts, this short little track is actually more of a mix between neo-prog, barely, pop, and bossa-nova, but turns out to be so freaking catchy that I just couldn't help but listen to it on repeat pretty much for the entirety of yesterday.
I have to say that since my father is a fan of prog-metal, I've heard a lot of bands start adding death growls and screams into their music as of recently (within the last couple of years or so I mean), and I have to say that the growling used on Tranquility and Stress is one of the few times I actually thought that they were not only well used, but well performed as well. A lot of bands that add growling into their sound seem to either do it in a half-assed way so the growling sounds really lame and contrived, or they'll modify with effects or pitch-shift it lower to make it sound more brutal than it actually is. Trying to appeal to a wider audience is fine, but if you're going to add something like death growls into your style, don't do it in a way that makes it seem like you obviously don't want it in your songs. But to actually mention the vocals, since growls are actually only used on the one song mentioned above, once again, they stand out. They remind me, more in performance than tone, of Russell Allen of Symphony X, which is by no means a bad thing. There's a lot of variety in the vocals, ranging from more sultry and subdued to the more powerful and gruff screams, or yells.
I was extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed this, but I am glad I gave this album a chance. Even though it's not typically a style I tend to cover, there's always a diamond in the rough waiting to be found, like this one, that just stands out and shines even brighter than the stones surrounding them. If you're a fan of progressive metal, and any of its various splintered factions, I definitely recommend checking this album out.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Tranquility and Stress, Cancún, The Man Made of Stone

Alfa Obscura - Plutonian Shores (2011)

Band: Alfa Obscura
Country: Norway
Style: Dissonant Black Metal
Label: Adversum

Bjørge Eide Martinsen is a musician who's been dealing within the black metal scene for quite some time now and has recently gotten several projects off the ground. But, for anyone who's actually heard any of the projects he's worked with it's going to be quite obvious that they are far from the typical style of black metal. Whether it's in Yurei or Delirium Bound, among other projects who haven't released albums yet, or even his bass work on the most recent Virus album, you always know that it's not going to be normal.
I have to say that personally, I'm very jealous of Martinsen's talent for making projects that are similar enough to kind of orbit around the same musical sphere but are all actually individuals. Of the projects I've heard him in, and excluding his work with Virus, in which you could obviously tell he was a great player, the three black metal projects he has, that I've heard mind you, including Alfa Obscura, Delirium Bound, and Yurei, they are all very different from "standard" and "traditional" black metal, despite how kvlt he may have intentioned them to actually be. When I compare this album to the two albums he released in 2010 under Yurei and Delirium Bound, this project falls somewhere in between the two. It's not as abstract and dissonant as Yurei, but it isn't as straightforward and abrasive, in more of a punk and rock'n'roll sense than a black metal one, as Delirium Bound was. You'll find that this is certainly very dissonant, but is still quite graspable and easy to kind of wrap your head around the sound that Martinsen is going for on here.
From the various bands I've heard him play in, there's a very clear jazz influence to his playing, which came through in the Virus album probably the clearest out of all his projects. Like all of his projects, the bass plays just as much of a role in the sound of the project as the guitars do. Throughout his work, the bass has always been a prominent feature that has helped to characterize his recordings because it's never been an instrument that is put in the very back of a recording to simply add (though it is debatable how many bands that can actually be applied to) low end. One could add that the raw and noisy production does add to the dissonance of a lot of the riffs used, and it's certainly hard to deny that, but it's just one of those factors that you either love or hate when listening to one of Martinsen's projects. Sure, there are certainly songs on here that are more straightforward and don't really tread too far into the more dissonant realms of Martinsen's sound, including The Weaver or Benighted Hierophants, but the noisy production still makes sense on them, those are actually some of the easier tracks to get into on the album by the way. The noisy quality also adds this air to the background which, I won't lie, does factor into making the album sound a bit more chaotic, but I stand by the fact that even if you made these recordings more sterile sounding, you'd still have a pretty discordant.
Overall, I while I enjoyed this album, it isn't as much as a "rocking" album as Delirium Bound and it isn't nearly as mind-crippling as Yurei, and instead falls somewhere in between, like I said above. It's not bad by any means mind you, but I could just as easily see some of these songs falling into one band or the other if they were pushed a little bit more in one direction. It's solid and I definitely recommend checking out anything Adversum puts out, but it won't change your view on Martinsen's work if you're already a fan, or not.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Hell Re-Throned, Benighted Hierophants, The Demon Is On The Horn

As a sidenote, this will be the last review I'll be posting for 2011. I am no longer covering anything else from last year or years prior.
Thank you

Meta-Stasis - When The Minds Departs From Flesh (2012)

Band: Meta-Stasis
Country: London, UK
Style: Technical/Industrial Deathcore
Label: Depraved

Back around 2007 I found a band called Ted Maul from the UK that really interested me at a time when I wasn't really into more brutal and chaotic forms of grindcore and death metal. Since finding their debut full-length White Label, I've been anxiously awaiting a follow-up but I have seen almost nothing regarding new material. When I found this band, I wasn't aware of any of the members involved, but because it was labeled as a progressive deathcore album (and thanks to my experience with Slice The Cake) I looked into the band and decided to give it a shot.
I have to say that since I don't currently know the status of Ted Maul, while I was listening to this album, I kind of viewed it as an extension of that band. Since half of this band is made of Ted Maul members, it's obviously going to sound a little bit like them but a lot of the ideas that were used in Ted Maul can be found on here as well. Both bands make use of technical and aggressive riffing while underpinning them with dark and dense atmospheres that bring a different sort of air to a "deathcore" group. Obviously since Solomon does vocals for both groups, he provides the clearest link between the two, and his style certainly recalls what he did on the Ted Maul full-length. He generally makes more prominent use of his low and guttural growls but still makes use of higher screams as well, nothing really unique in that regard, but what has set him apart is the use of effects that he chooses to use on his vocals, which appear to be everything from chorus to flangers and phasers, which certainly add to the variety of his vocals, hear a track like Space Occupying Lesion for instance. It's their presence that really makes him stand out, more so than he already does since to the choice of lows being his prominent vocal style, among the hundreds of other vocalists trying to gain any sort of notoriety.
Personally, while this album is solid, it ultimately feels like an album of ideas. A lot of the tracks are complete and finished, don't mistake this critique for talking about unfinished material, but a lot of the ideas either feel like I've heard done before, many times before, and ideas that sound like they were just sort of cut and pasted together into a song that just doesn't sound cohesive. Sure, Demon Barber Surgeon is a decent enough track, but it doesn't really do anything interesting besides give you a foundation for what the band are going to show you later. It feels overly simplistic and uninteresting in comparison with later tracks like Both Sides of The River or Misery Redefined where the band give a much better demonstration as to what they can do. Those songs are technical while still having riffs and making use of a bit of melody as well. While I do think that the dark ambient and industrial edge the band make use of on here does give them a definite edge in terms of standing out, it is by no means as jarring as the electronics used for Ted Maul, though they're probably not meant to anyway, they add more of a backdrop for the main instruments rather than playing any sort of integral role.
It's a solid enough debut release, but personally, beyond a handful of tracks, this album didn't do all that much for me. It's got a good range of ideas that will more than likely appeal to various crowds. I'd like to hear a further development and refinement of their sound in the future, but until then, I'll just have to take the good with the bad for this one.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: Ways of The Wise, Both Sides of The River, We All Must Die

Job For A Cowboy - Demonocracy (2012)

Band: Job For A Cowboy
Country: Glendale, Arizona
Style: Technical Death Metal
Label: Metal Blade

Despite what anyone might think about Job For A Cowboy, I've actually always enjoyed them. I've never been blown away by any of their releases but I enjoyed how they pretty much released what I guess could be considered a quintessential deathcore release and then moved onto straight ahead death metal. I don't really know what else to say, so here's the review.
I have to say that I still remember when JFAC was first starting to blow up and seeing a commercial for Genesis on tv that where it was paired with a Dimmu Borgir album. At that time, I still wasn't too into death metal, but I started to get interested in the band when they released a video for their song Altered From Catechization from that debut full-length. After I bought the album I remember listening to it on repeat for quite a while, I think it was probably one of the first "pure" death metal albums I had heard up to that point that I really enjoyed. Then Ruination came out and I was pretty underwhelmed by it and found a lot of the songs to be rather dull to me. It wasn't a bad album, but it didn't rival their debut in my opinion. Now we have this third full-length, which follows up last year's Gloom EP, which was rather solid, not great, but decent enough for me to still want to pay attention to the band.
I'll just come out and say that this album has some of the best songs JFAC has ever written on it. The musicianship on these songs is top-notch, and really moves them from being a more straight ahead, semi-technical, death metal band into a full-on tech-death band. The guitar is fast and precise while still bringing riffs that I can say with confidence are some of the best the band has ever written. Dare I say that these songs are also some of the band's most melodic as well. Jon Rice is a great drummer, and as if you needed any further proof of his skills, his work on opener Children of Deceit should show you why he's become as revered as he has. Personally, I've always thought Jonny Davy had a quite original sounding voice, when it comes to growling and screaming, and he had a solid range and managed to always keep you on your toes, and on here he's in top form as well. Personally, I've always preferred his lows to his highs, which at times are a bit grating, but like I just said, he uses a lot of variety throughout the record so neither style is completely overused. Nick Schendzielos is one of the reasons why this record also manages to top the band's previous albums as well, in my opinion at least. His playing style is all over this record, and really helps to keep these songs interesting ever after listening to them repeatedly, hear a track like Tongueless and Bound. His work in Cephalic Carnage was great, and he brings a similar sense of technical exuberance to these songs as well.
But like I mentioned above, this album features some of the band's best songs to date. In my opinion, Black Discharge is probably my favorite JFAC song to date, and it just has all the elements I want from a modern death metal band, it's fast, intense, and relentless while never losing sight of the power of the riff. Meanwhile you have tracks like the first single, Nourishment Through Bloodshed, and The Manipulation Stream that show the band using more melody than they ever have before. But, as it should go without saying at this point, the band has now gone fully tech-death. Like the title-track from their last full-length, the closer for this album, Tarnished Gluttony, is a slower track that is an appropriate way to end the album. While being super fast and technical is all well and good, I still enjoy that manages to mix things up, even if it's just one track on an album, it can make a world of difference, and this closer is one of my favorites from the album.
Top form tech-death and definitely the band's finest hour. I am actually a little surprised by how much I enjoyed this record seeing as I didn't come into it with the highest of expectations (though I didn't come in with the lowest either), but it's a welcome surprise for sure. Like I need to tell you to check this album out, but if you've been scared away by the deathcore tag that's stuck with the band since they first came out, this album will more than likely turn you into a fan and make you question that deathcore tag as well.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Imperium Wolves, Black Discharge, Tarnished Gluttony

Eternal Deformity - The Beauty of Chaos (2012)

Band: Eternal Deformity
Country: Żory, Poland
Style: Avant-Garde Metal
Label: Code666

I have to admit that this was yet another band that I thought had actually broken up. I originally found this band around 2008, and I really hadn't heard anything new regarding them in the years after I had found them so I had just assumed that they had broken up. When I was sent this album I was really surprised that they had not only been working on a new album, but that it was coming out pretty soon. Epic fail on my part.
If there's one thing I love about the avant-garde metal scene, it's that there's always variety. No matter the band, on an album you could get various styles interacting or interchanging numerous times, and I find that extreme exciting. Variety is the spice of life, so it only makes sense that it enhances music as well. Eternal Deformity, despite their more doomy past, have developed into a band that is far more interesting and unique. There's always something going on in a song that isn't in another, and though that is a trait that the avant-garde, or even progressive for that matter, genres have going for them, Eternal Deformity demonstrates on here that they are more than capable of crafting songs that do not sound like other bands.
Though it is a bit of a stretch, the only bands I could even begin to compare Eternal Deformity are their Greek and Hungarian brothers in Transcending Bizarre? and Damned Spirits' Dance, respectively, but even those are still pretty fleeting comparisons at that. I'd say that the boys in this band are a bit more diverse in terms of the genres they utilize than either of those bands, but the symphonic, and occasional power metal, influences mixed in with the black metal sound is why I even bring those bands up. I know that the idea of power metal being mixed with black metal isn't a sound that will be all that appealing to a lot of people, and I'll even admit that I'm not huge on the power metal genre, but when it's used sparingly and when it's used in a way that compliments the rest of the music, of course it's going to appeal to people with weird tastes. In a sense, the clean vocals are a bit reminiscent of the power metal genre, at least to me, though they're not nearly as high or annoying as the sound many are probably imagining, the tone of the voice and the melodies used do bring a hint of that to the choruses of songs like Lifeless and The Sun. Sure, I'll admit that I'm not one for synthesized horn sections, The Beauty of The Ultimate End, and that I find a whole lot of bands that work within the "symphonic" realm of things rather pretentious, but as long as the orchestration fits with the music and doesn't change the band into a backing band (I wish I could've found a more elegant way to phrase that).
But like I've said in numerous other reviews, what really matters is songwriting, can the band write a memorable or interesting song. I recently heard a critique on the whole "avant-metal" scene where it was mentioned that you can cram as many ideas into a single track as possible, but it doesn't amount to anything if it doesn't achieve much if it just goes through one ear and out the other. I have to say that outside of a couple of hiccups here and there on here, the band do a commendable job at putting together a group of songs that are memorable and provide interesting listens. I found the album pretty evenly balanced between songs that relied on choruses to provide hooks and songs that were more aggressive but still made use of a melodies that were appealing enough to draw the listener back over and over again.
In the end, I, like it's any surprise at this point, think that this is a really good album. As a fan of more progressive and avant-garde forms of metal, I was obviously inclined to like this album from the start, but I think that this album has potential for appealing to a wide amount of people because of how melodic it is while still being quite unique. Give it a shot if you're a fan of symphonic groups who are different, in a good way. Eternal Deformity surprises me once again.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Lifeless, The Sun, The Holy Decay

Ebony Sorrow - A Grimoire of Depravity EP (2012)

Band: Ebony Sorrow
Country: Syracuse, New York
Style: Black Metal/Grindcore
Label: Independent

When Ebony Sorrow first sent me their demo I was very impressed with the sound they were working with. Despite having been a band for over a decade this is only their third, overall, release. This EP comes three years after that demo was originally released so when the band told me about this I was interested to see how they had progressed.
The four tracks that make up this EP show as much diversity as the band's last demo did, with each track personifying a different musical approach. Opener Hadephobia is without a doubt the highlight of this release. It's a stripped-down and intense piece of black metal that just drives forward before shifting gears and changing into a bluesy groove that just turns the entire track into something new. The three other songs take that song and sort of split it into what could be taken as the parts that made it. Prayer is a straightforward black metal song that incorporates some nice clean vocals near its conclusion while Supositorium is a piece of snotty punk influenced grindcore that, while it isn't really my thing, is pretty quick and doesn't really do anything to get on my nerves. The band is, in my opinion, at their best when they're just bulldozing the listener down with intense black metal riffs or blasting grind, though I wasn't too huge on their punk yells (if that's what you could call them). The intensity they generate is far better than most bands that have been going for as long as they have.
I'd like to think the band made a step forward with this release, though I'd like to think that they could accomplish so much more. With all the different styles they've been able to utilize on their various recordings, I think that they could actually begin fusing them together into a more concrete style. I'd love to hear a longer release too, but for now, this will have to do.
Overall Score: 6.5
Highlights: Hadephobia, Fierce Fucking Winds

Double Review: God Forbid & Demon Hunter