Riverside - Shrine of New Generation Slaves (2013)

Band: Riverside
Country: Warsaw, Poland
Style: Progressive Rock/Metal
Label: InsideOut

Ever since my father first showed me Riverside a couple of years ago I've had an on-off relationship with them. I have always found them to be an interesting band, but not a band that I found myself returning to over and over. With 2009's Anno Domino High Definition album, I finally found an album by the band that I could fully stand behind, and I was really curious to see if the same would be true for this new album.
From my experience with Riverside throughout the years, in my opinion, their early work sounded a bit too much like a band copying Steven Wilson's work in Porcupine Tree for me to get overly exercised about it. They weren't bad albums and I'm certainly not opposed to listening to them, but they weren't enough for me to consider myself a fan of the band. With Anno Dominio High Definition it sounded like the band embraced a slightly more metallic edge to their sound while keeping their prog-rock core in tact. It was a really interesting album that saw the band experimenting with a lot of interesting ideas, not just from metal, but other genres as well; and then pulling them off pretty damn well if I do say so. So coming into this, I had read somewhere that for this album the band were going to take in more of a classic hard rock mentality of writing and so that did pique my interest. From the couple of times I've listened to this album, I do think that it would be fair to say that this album is a bit more straightforward than their last few have been and, to my ears, the riffing on here has a much stronger foundation in blues. I also don't think this album will be quite as alienating as Anno Dominio High Definition was to some.
Tracks like the first single Celebrity Touch definitely bring that sound to the forefront with it's heavy and driving riffs and soaring chorus. It's definitely a strong track on here and really showcases everything the band does well within a moderately short time-frame (under seven minutes isn't that long). But if you're expecting this entire album to sound like that song you'll probably end up disappointed (this goes mainly for newer fans). The rest of the album definitely retains a lot of the signature ideas and traits that are present in the band's older work. Unlike their last full-length, this album isn't quite as aggressive, it has it's heavy moments, but the majority of it keeps things within that sort of atmospheric prog-rock sound. To older fans this won't provide much of a stumbling block, but for those people who might have only heard that single, I think it's only fair to warn them. While tracks like the aforementioned single and Deprived (Irretrievably Lost Imagination) definitely bring the ruckus with some solid riffs and catchy choruses, tracks like We Got Used to Us - which is a great ballad - and even the first half of opener New Generation Slave keep things more melancholic and atmospheric.
Perhaps this album doesn't quite measure up to the group's last full-length, but it's still a mighty fine piece of work. There are some really strong songs on here, but it just doesn't keep momentum like that aforementioned previous full-length did for me. If you're a fan of progressive rock or prog-metal (to a lesser extent) you probably are already familiar with Riverside, but if you aren't this would be a fine place to start.
Overall Score: 7.5
Highlights: Celebrity Touch, We Got Used to Us, Escalator Shrine

In Vain - Ænigma (2013)

Band: In Vain
Country: Kristiansand, Norway
Style: Progressive Death/Black Metal
Label: Indie Recordings

I have been following the band called In Vain for several years now and I have to say their progress has been a bit surprising. They're a band who started out with a very interesting debut than released a second album that was really well done but a bit of a mess stylistically. With this third album I wasn't sure where the band was going to take their sound next.
When I first listened to this album's opening track, Against The Grain, I have to say I wasn't all that impressed; but saying that doesn't mean I didn't like what I heard. It's certainly not a bad song, but knowing what the band sounded like on the previous two albums, it wasn't a big shift from the sound that they worked with on their second full-length. It was an aggressive song that had a strong foundation in black metal with some solid clean vocal sections breaking up the death growls. I have to say I my first impression was actually surprised because it wasn't a big or flashy track that demonstrated a change from their previous material (as their second album had with Captivating Solitude). Then came Image of Time, which for all intents and purposes is basically a solid blackened-doom track (nothing special) that happens to feature Lazare Nedland and Cornelius Jakhelln (of the mighty Solefald). It's not an overly spectacular track but their presence made it a track that I returned to quite often. But up to the third track, Southern Shores - an interlude - I have to be honest and say that I was actually pretty disappointed that the band were essentially rehashing the formula they did on Mantra. Open with an aggressive black metal song with a big chorus, then a slower song (by comparison), and then an interlude. In my opinion they were just doing the same thing they did on their last album and I wasn't too impressed.
The first three tracks were perfectly fine, but to be frank, the band didn't really grab me when the members of Solefald weren't performing their vocals on the aforementioned track. I'm sad to say, the band didn't even grab me like I wanted them to on here. Just to restate my earlier opinion, none of the songs on here are inherently bad, they just didn't live up to either of the band's previous two full-lengths in terms of songwriting, experimentation, or darkness. That isn't to say there aren't highlights on here, the longest tracks on here certainly show everything that I like best about the band. The double-bass pounding away under the staccato black metal chords that open up Culmination of The Enigma is really great (one of several great moments in that song actually) and the tremolo picked lines that carry Times of Yore are two of quite a few stellar moments on the second half of this album, I just happen to think it's a shame that there weren't more like them on the first half. It's actually quite a stellar second half to be honest. The four songs that make up this half of the album are strong and bulky slabs of blackened metal, which is an easier way of saying each genre that the band employ on here. It nowhere near as diverse as the band's last full-length (stylistically I mean), but it's a whole hell of a lot more cohesive. From what I've read thus far, that was the intention of the band and many people appear to like this album because of it. In that regard, it is certainly a step up from their past releases, but I can't help feeling lit down by the way this album is performed. Even with how strong I feel the second half is, the acoustic bits did feel a bit tacked on to me (like they weren't all that essential to the way the songs were progressing) but that's just me.
It's solid, but not as great as I had hoped it would, or could, have been. The band has talent, clearly, but this album seems uncharacteristically safe for them and I prefer the stylistic mess of their second album or the black metal dominated sound of their first over this one. Not bad, and clearly it hasn't let a lot of people down it has me, so check the band out if you haven't already, but this one just isn't up to par in my opinion.
Overall Score: 7
Highlights: Culmination of The Enigma, To The Core

Quadrivium - Methocha (2012)

Band: Quadrivium
Country: Ålesund, Norway
Style: Progressive/Symphonic Black Metal
Label: Soulseller

I have been a big fan of Quadrivium for years now (they were one of the bands I reviewed in my first couple of months doing this actually). I've been following the release of this album for a while now and I'm glad that it's finally getting a release after everything the band has gone through. I really wanted to cover this before the end of 2012, but events out of my control led to it being written now.
Seeing that the band's line-up has changed since the release of Adversus back in 2008, it would be understandable to assume that their style has shifted as well, but it might shock you to it hasn't changed all that much. The band are definitely sticking with their very layered sounding symphonic sound, though if you're thinking this is anything like all the Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir worshiping bands, you'll be sadly mistaken cause these guys definitely have their own style. Digging into much more progressive ground, the orchestral work is not quite as overblown or pompous as many many bands make it out to be. Instead, the band take an approach which doesn't solely rely on the orchestrations to carry the song. There are certainly sections on here where that is the case, don't get me wrong, but there are just as many where the orchestrations go hand in hand with what the guitars are doing, which gives the band a very interesting sound. With that being said, you will hear quite a bit of organ on here as well, so if that sort of thing bothers you, you might not dig some of these songs, but as for me, being someone who loves the sound of an organ, I thought it greatly contributed to the band's sound. The synth-based orchestrations mixing with the organ tones and industrial effects really come together into an odd little concoction. The fusion of these synth sounds creates an atmosphere which is unlike that of almost any other bands I've heard (I say almost because there is definitely some Arcturus in there), but it stands apart from even them because of the dominance of certain tones over others.
I really have to commend Attila Bakos, the band's new clean vocalist, for his work on here. I've known about this guy for a while now because I had heard his vocal covers of Arcturus and Ulver (among other groups) and when I heard that he had been taken on board to do vocals for this band, I was very interested to see how he would adjust to the band's sound. Whereas Bjørnar Nilsen, of Vulture Industries, had done the clean vocals on the band's first full-length, Bakos definitely takes no time in making his presence known on here. The two do have comparable voices that definitely recall the likes of both vocalists from Arcturus - Garm and ICS Vortex - I will say that Bakos is much closer to the latter whereas Nilsen is closer to the former (if I had to say). Worry not if this is making you think that this is a melodic based album, because you still have several moments of aggression that are sure to please any fan of more straightforward black metal, in this case being Destroyer. This track in particular does what the title says, it just blasts and grinds and grooves from start to finish - resulting in it being the most aggressive track on the entire album. Then you have the more epic approach on The Labyrinth of Infinity, which certainly is the track to listen to if you want to hear a little bit of everything that you're in for on here. It has the quazi-death metal riffing, more spacey ambient breaks, blasting black metal, and more melodic sections that all work together in a way that would make several "progressive" bands quite jealous.
Obviously, I enjoyed this album, though it certainly was different that I anticipated it would be - though I have to say that I'm rather glad about that. It definitely is less indebted to the likes of Arcturus as an influence and shows the band carving out a sound all their own, but they're not quite there just yet. Definitely for fans of more progressive and experimentally inclined black metal.
Overall Score: 9
Highlights: Dead Syphon Focus, Eye of Mimas, The Labyrinth of Infinity

Menace Ruine - Alight In Ashes (2012)

Band: Meance Ruine
Country: Montreal, Canada
Style: Experimental Noise/Blackened Drone
Label: Profound Lore

For the longest time, I've had trouble getting into the Canadian duo known as Menace Ruine. Maybe I just didn't understand them at the time, but I just found their albums to be incredibly hard to take. Because this album is coming out on Profound Lore, I actually decided to give this one a shot.
The duo of Geneviève Beaulieu and S. de La Moth have been sculpting monoliths of blackened noise for several years at this point, something even I am willing to admit about them. To me, even though I certainly respected the hell out of them, their sound was always just one of those that seemed foreign to me when I was listening. Since then I've come to listen to many raw black metal and blackened noise groups and projects so maybe if I listened to them now I actually might like them now (who knows), but it seemed rather strange to me that Profound Lore would sign them. For all the experimental groups the label appears to be picking up, Menace Ruine still stand out in their roster as one of the most abstract. I'm going to be upfront and say that for this album I actually didn't go back and listen to the duo's past material, but I was actually rather impressed with this. I think that the ideas on it are a little more towards what I'm comfortable with on a sonic level. I can appreciate the forms of harmonic distortion used on tracks like the opener Set Water to Flames or Burnt Offerings more than I remember being able to dig into the more neo-folk leanings of an album like The Die Is Cast. But maybe that's even an understatement to how much my tastes have changed since that side is embraced on here as well and I can tolerate it as well.
The aesthetic of this album contains that sort of mystical quality that I happen to find within groups of the neo-folk and martial industrial genres more than those that are typically associated with metal, but given that it's this duo I shouldn't be all that surprised. While I do remember hearing traces of it on their previous albums, once again, I didn't connect with it the way I was on here. Even though I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the duo, even after listening to this album, I will admit that this is one of the most seamless fusions of blackened noise and martial industrial music I've ever heard. Yes, I'm well aware that the number of bands who choose to embrace both those styles into their sound is very small, miniscule even, but there will be those who know the bands I'm talking about and they will understand this. And the bands who do take those two sounds, most to a smaller degree than this album does, actually do the mixture quite well, so it is saying something when I say that this is one of the best fusion of those ideas. Obviously, this sort of music is not everyone's cup of tea, and more than likely won't appeal to a huge number of people even with Profound Lore's backing, but there will be those who do pick it up because of the label and will find something different and interesting (at the very least) when they put this album on.
Frankly, my entire experience with this album is just a matter of circumstance, I used to not get them, this time, I think I do understand what they're getting at - or at least more so of what they're getting at anyway. The duo are still creating slabs of abstraction in genres that will be somewhat tough to swallow, but actually are rather interesting when you sit down and concentrate on what they're doing. If you have the patience for it and happen to enjoy more experimental depictions of metal, industrial, and neo-folk music, by all means, check this album out.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Arsenikon (Faded In Discord), Disease of Fear

The Expansion of Noise/The Destruction of Drone (2013)

This is the first time I'm really doing an article like this but recently I've gotten quite a bit of releases sent to me from different artists and have given them a little while to digest (some, obviously, longer than others). But with each new release, the urge to write an all encompassing article. Is it a cop out to do all of these releases at once instead of individually? Yes. But based on some of the compilation reviews I've written last year, apparently these bigger write-ups are quite popular and (hopefully) turn those who read it onto more than just a single artist. In the instance of these releases, all of them obviously have to do with the drone and noise genres. What each and every one of them managed to do for me was show a different perspective on those genres. Whether it happened to be through a collaboration with other artists or just a natural expansion of sound, they did leave quite an impression.

Pensées Nocturnes - Nom d'une Pipe! (2013)

Band: Pensées Nocturnes
Country: Paris, France
Style: Neoclassical/Progressive Black Metal
Label: Les Acteurs de l'Ombre Productions

Vaerohn's project Pensées Nocturnes has proved to be one of the most interesting and unique groups to emerge from the whole "depressive black metal scene" that really grew in popularity in the late 2000s. Having been more in favor of avant-garde orchestral arrangements over repetitive guitar strumming, both of his previous full-lengths (if you don't include the troll album Ceci est de la Musique from 2011) have proved to be some of the weirdest releases of those years. Anything Vaerohn puts his name to is certainly worth hearing in my book and a new full-length from this project would be at the top of my list.
For my money, I'd say that easily one of the best bands/projects/etc. to make anything of value under the "symphonic black metal" tag in somewhere around the last decade or so, would be this project. Vaerohn is definitely a man who knows what he's doing. Instead of using simply symphonic elements to either pump up an ordinary extreme metal song, or even build a song around the orchestral instrumentation, his Pensées Nocturnes is one of the very few bands out there right now who I can say fully integrates orchestral music with black metal, and to a great degree on this album, jazz as well. On his previous two full-lengths, those of us who listened to the project were witness to one of the most abstract and well developed uses of symphonic orchestration in extreme metal since Vladimir Cochet's work in Mirrorthrone. The orchestrations didn't seem like a separate part of the music or an afterthought, but an actual extension of the extreme metal being played. Whether you had Baroque inspired movements playing against blast-beats or flourishes of horns playing over a rather slow doom part, it worked - for better or worse you can decide, but I say it worked.
On this album, Vaerohn has really brought out more of that jazz element of the project. The orchestral work is certainly still there, but, at least to me, there wasn't as much Wagner or Chopin on here as much as Piazzolla or Badalamenti. The music was perhaps even more abstract, bringing in an even wider assortment of instrumentation including an accordion during several instances. I'd also be willing to say that there's at least a bigger embrace of the work of Mr. Bungle (one of my favorite bands). With some nice funk inspired sections and some rather exaggerated wailing and operatic vocalizing on Le Marionnetiste for instance, it just struck me as some Bungle-ish influences creeping through. For as much as I dig a band like Sigh, I would say that Vaerohn manages to make better use of orchestral based sounds and instruments than they do despite working in a somewhat similar context (extreme metal with lots of outside influences). To return to the Bungle reference again, the entire album is given this live performance sort of dynamic where after certain sections of songs, a clap track will accompany a conclusion. It's silly and sort of unnecessary, but it reminded me of all those extremely silly and frankly stupid things that Bungle did on their debut full-length, yet both Bungle and Vaerohn make it work to their advantage.
Another thing I have to mention is my love for the drum sound on this record. Unlike a lot of metal records today which make use of very clicky kick drums and poppy snares, this drums on here are much more naturalistic sounding. I almost want to call it flat sounding, but that makes it sound like a bad thing, but the kicks are never intrusive of the rest of the music and the snare is nice and booming without sounding like it's reverbed to hell. The bass doesn't stick out too often, but when it comes out to play, it certainly leaves, at to least me, an impression. The guitar work is a nice blend of standard black metal tremolo picked work mixed in with neo-classical arpeggios and jazz and funk inspired chordal work and play.
It's silly, bizarre, quirky, dark, and playful all at once while never once forgetting that this is still an extreme metal project. I am well aware that this project certainly doesn't appeal to a vast majority of people, but in the past I was captivated by the oddity that this project was, now I am captivated by what the project is able to do. It's a record that far surpassed any expectations I had set for it and is one of the best things I've heard so far this year.
Overall Score: 9.5
Highlights: Every Track Is A Highlight

Benea Reach - Possession (2013)

Band: Benea Reach
Country: Oslo, Norway
Style: Djent/Progressive Metal
Label: Spinefarm

Despite really enjoying the whole tech metal and djent scenes to a pretty high degree, Benea Reach was a band I never really paid a whole lot of attention to. I was well aware of them before the big djent craze in the last couple of years, but even then, I might have listened to their 2008 album Alleviat once. But I made a conscious decision to give this album a listen when it was finally released.
I guess one could call Benea Reach a pre-djent band because, along with a few other groups, they were copying Meshuggah first. Though I don't know if I'd give them as much credit as other groups like Textures (who have a far more textured sound) or Ion Dissonance (who were far more chaotic), they certainly do deserve some respect for trying to make that sound their own before the internet exploded with one-man bedroom projects of people chugging on their low-E/F strings. But, then again, to say that what these guys were doing before this album was all that inspired would be saying a lot more about their sound than I happen to think is warranted. Their early work is very typical of what many bands are now doing in the groove metal and djent genres now and listening back to them now, they really don't sound all that special to be honest. So, with this new album, I have to say I was let down by just how typical it was. There really isn't much on here one couldn't find done better in some way by another band. The grooves aren't as complex as Monuments or Vildhjarta, the riffing isn't as catchy as Periphery or Animals As Leaders, they're not as atmospheric as either TesseracT or Uneven Structure, so what does that leave left?
The answer is not very much. This is basically a mix of modern djent tropes and melodic death metal, if that grabs you, then great, you'll probably really dig this album. I'm a fan of djent, obviously, and while I don't check out as much melo-death as I once did, I am certainly still open to being impressed by it, but the fusion that this band does just isn't good enough I'm sorry to say. I hate to just pick this thing apart but I have to say, the production is rather average, and in comparison to all the groups mentioned above, this just gets the job done and nothing more. In my opinion, it's pretty standard modern melo-death styled production, where guitars take the lead focus until the vocals come in and then fall in line with the synth during a chorus or more atmospheric part. The guitar work is more or less focused on groove, with some more melodic parts thrown in for the choruses - of which I actually have no complaints about; but the groove based riffs just do not cut it. They are very average and if you've heard any of the albums from the bands I listed above and then listen to this, I think we can reach a common ground that what is on this album is just not good enough anymore. And maybe it's just me, but I've never been particularly fond of Ilkka's vocals, so it surprised me when I actually didn't find them irritating me when I first listened to this. Then I listened to it a couple more times and it just got worse and worse for me. While I can tolerate his singing and his growling is passable, when he just lets out some of his higher pitched screams, it just irritated me to no end, which is a real shame because that's his main style on one of the album's best tracks, Crown, but my god if his performance on Constellation isn't just one of the most annoying I've heard in quite some time. I'll gladly admit that, overall, his performance on here is the best I've heard from all the albums he's been on, but I'm not sure if that's saying all that much to begin with. I really don't feel good saying that this album has more in common with a modern metalcore (melodic metalcore if that makes anyone feel any better) record than any of the best djent or melodic death metal albums out at the moment.
I hate to say it but I just found this album to be a real chore to listen to from start to finish, and that is something that one should never feel when listening to an album. It has to be said that while I find this album to be uninspired and rather dull, none of the performances are what I could call bad. This is nothing to write home about, but if you insist on listening to this, just don't blame me if you don't end up liking it.
Overall Score: 4.5
Highlights: Crown, Empire, Aura