Stake-Off the Witch - Medusa (2010) / 85%

Cannelloni & Manicotti Doom pt. I: Sonic Look

Hailing from Piacenza (Northern Italy), this quartet explores pretty interesting sonic landscapes. The band, composed equally of two men and two women (something more and more recurrent in the Italian doom/stoner scene with bands like Kröwnn, Hands of Orlac or Black Capricorn). I personally adore the contribution of women in metal when it feels genuine and not forced like these symphonic unmetal copycats plaguing the world.

Fuzzy as fuck, the bass is loud and in your face and melds well with the double guitar attack. I immediately thought of Sonic Youth for some reason, the voice of Steph (guitar, vocals) reminded me of Kim Gordon a little and the wall of noise made me recall the wonderful releases of the American seminal band. She has a sort of charming, ethereal voice that would make me open my eyes even though I could be transformed into stone. There's even some male vocals in the catchy and groovy “Time is Over” to push the Sonic Youth analogy forward. She also reminds me of Laura Pleasants, a cute blonde handling the guitar like a boss always makes me blush!

Stake-Off the Witch plays some sort of really loud stoner metal/rock with definite psychedelic elements (the second half of “You Get Me Down” for example) intertwined with noisy but clear cut riffs supported by a solid but subtle rhythm section. It reminds me of the spacey sound of Kylesa mixed with an healthy dosage of noisy grungey influences. The songs are mostly fast or mid paced and can reach the seven minutes mark, they never plod though and the album doesn't deviate from their formula much. Their sound is pretty original as it includes influences from different genres to create something almost new, it won't change your world but it might make you like stoner rock a bit more. There's not a lot of criticisms I can find here, it's well done, well written and fun music by a very underrated band.

Their songwriting is intricate and rich and it's culminating with the two parts finale “On The Negation And Affirmation Of Medusa” with its heavy crushing riffs and soft entrancing vocals. If you like your stoner to be well thought rather than all about drugs and fun, this Italian band is for you, waste no time and get Medusa!

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Tjolgtjar - Kjal Tjormejn (2012) / 87%

What is that? No idea.

I can't spell that name for shit, thank Satan for copy paste.

J.R. Preston is a busy man, when he's not releasing new albums with this one man band, he's doing it with Blood Cult, Enbilulugugal or plenty of other projects including a country one. Hailing from Illinois, the music has a obvious American Midwest feel and I really dig that.

Tjholtgtar being pretty productive (four full lengths released in 2012 but some of it is old stuff), it's a bit hard to get into them (or him!) and this album is perhaps not the best starting point. Might I suggest Ikarikitomidun, Lord of the Forest The New Age, the instrumental fun of Psychedelic or the conceptual horror of Halloween? The album is one song, forty two minutes in length so it's certainly not for people with a deficit of attention. Even though all his stuff is weird, some of it can be quite easier to assimilate.
The whole deal is kind of raw but the guitars are very audible and you can discern the riffs pretty easily, really. The riffs and leads are solid (such as the awesome bluesy licks at around 6:00) and I like the production on them, it's kind of crisp and dirty but it can be melodic and clean when it needs to be. There's even some acoustic guitars here and there such as in the final minute of the album. It gives a sort of bluegrass feeling and I really like when metal integrates unconventional genres like country or neo folk (such as the excellent Austrian band Cadaverous Condition.)

I guess I'll say it's more lo-fi than raw. It's charming and the songwriting fits the production quite well. I wouldn't want to hear that sort of music with a crystal clear Nuclear Blast sound. Fuck off plastic black metal! I think the do it yourself approach is what makes this relevant. It proved that a sound can still be rich and intricate without the need of a fifty thousand bucks production and the help of Peter Tagtgren.

The black metal core includes many different influences such as rock & roll, blues, psychedelic, grunge, progressive, surf rock, punk, etc... But everything is included as a coherent deal, nothing feels forced. You're not telling yourself “ohhh, here's a psychedelic inspired section” and “cool, clean vocals!”. The progression of the album feels natural and the flow is totally fine, a primordial concept in a one song release.

Preston is using some cool buried and weird clean vocals (he's better than Fenriz!) alongside his high pitched black metal screeches. There's not a lot of vocals, the excellent songwriting is the core of the album but they're pleasant enough and accordingly buried. Lyrically, it's about esotericism, mysticism and some sort of mythology I really don't grasp but it's fun. It's some sort of Indian primitivism, it's fucked up and a good fit to the eclectic out there music.

Definitely adventurous, Toultgtjar breaks the boundaries of taste to create an album that will only appeal to the most courageous listeners. This sort of lo-fi black metal has already a small fan base, mix it with this cocktail of influences and you have something totally fringe.

Recommended only if you're cool enough and like risks.

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Prajna – The Summer Eclipse (2014) / 94%

Bogota's Hidden Diamond

Andrés Felipe Murillo is a young Colombian man, he dresses well, he's into anime and Japanese video games like Touhou and he's a terrific musician. I'll have to admit he's a good friend of mine but this won't taint my judgement! I'm objective in the face of awesomeness and the first full length of this solo project is certainly phallus inducing.

Prajna used to be a full band but he always was the composer until he decided to davemustaine a little and fire everyone. He can do almost everything on his own and considering the Colombian scene is not very inclined to his genre of music (it prefers dumb thrash apparently) it doesn't quite matter if he plays gigs or not. Murillo composed everything and played all instruments on this debut, his first release since the impressive EP  “Lost in the Void” released three years ago. It took him a while to finish since he's also a full time student but it's top notch and well worth the wait for his small circle of fans throughout the interwebs.

The ten songs, forty six minutes full length is an impressive unique slab of heavy/power/speed metal and it really sounds professional even though there's no label support or anything of the sort. The drums were programmed but it's no biggie, the results can be of high quality nowadays and it's not the end of the world in my opinion. The production and mastering are pretty good considering the DIY approach, lots of time was dedicated to it and the mixing support of Charles Wong (another friend of mine) really helped the record. The riffs and solos are very well produced and nothing sounds wimpy and shallow.  Quite the contrary.

The dude is a very talented guitarist and he proves it throughout the whole deal with the numerous excellent solos (such as the catchy lead opening of “This World (Is Broken)” or the raw instrumental energetic finale of “Nowhere”.  It has a good amount of cool riffing too, it's fast paced, ultra melodic without being too cheesy and saccharine. The album is quite diverse too, it has some progressive elements like “Heart on Fire” with its ethereal piano background reminding me of the later modern stuff of Dark Tranquillity. The main influence here is Japanese video game music and anime though, it's mixed with the traditional metal sound to create something awesome and inspiring. Since I have basically no kawaii knowledge except for like Full Metal Alchemist and Cowboy Bebop, I can't truly get the references but eh, it's special and interesting. It's not quite apparent and I only know it's there because he told me but someone who isn't familiar won't get the Japanese references and it won't interfere with their enjoyment.

Murillo is influenced by the good stuff, like early German speed metal and American power metal. John Arch (Fates Warning) is definitely one of his influences vocally and that's always appreciated even though Arch can't be beaten. While his delivery is perhaps the only negative thing I can find here, he's not bad, he's simply pretty unconventional. His high pitched thick Spanish accent can be grating for some but I think it can be lovely and adorable when you get used to it! His delivery is high pitched, powerful but juvenile but no one can accuse him of not being true to himself. Even if he's not a top notch vocalist, his vocal lines are quite superb, he's not only a guitarist, that's for sure. As long as he doesn't get kidnapped by the FARC, I'm sure he can improve his skills! His English is pretty much perfect so the lyrics are well written, definitely better than many European power metal bands.

Catchy, fun, well written and honest metal is what is delivered here, through the immense, obscure talent of its composer, Prajna shines. Kiss the cook because this is tasty! It's a great mix of emotional shred, riffy speed metal, melodic power metal and it has many refreshing ideas. No lines snorting there, only legit stuff induced by hard work, true talent and vision.

Get the album for free on Bandcamp, pay more than 15 bucks to get a physical copy.

Andrés Felipe Murillo

Jesters of Destiny – Fun at the Funeral (1986) / 95%

NWOFHM #7: SPECIAL ISSUE – Will Ferrell

Tony's notes: This review concerns the remastered reissue that includes seven excellent bonus songs that would had been on the next album and a cool cover of Black Sabbath's Electric Funeral. It's the mandatory version, I would say.

The year: 1986. Many metal bands were releasing their magnum opuses and the genre really started to diversify and started to explore many different horizons, sometimes extreme, sometimes estranged ones. Jesters of Destiny were a beast that was way too adventurous for its time or at least were not commercial enough for a label like Metal Blade that dropped the band after its debut album. Due to today's genre specialization, they could perhaps find their crowd, albeit a limited one. I can live with this marginalization, not everyone is destined to like everything. This band is definitely something else. Something great!

This album was reissued by Ektro Records, hence catching my attention since I follow the deeds of this label very closely. Jussi Lehtisalo, the man behind Ektro must be a huge fan of this defunct band since Bruce Duff (bass, vocals) contributed to some of his projects like Pharaoh Overlord's Out of Darkness and the excellent Circle album Hollywood. Both men surely share a liking for intricate, unorthodox music and it's undeniable that Lehtisalo was influenced by the album's vision.

Many sources say that the band invented the so called “alternative metal” genre and while you can feel a similarity with bands like Primus or even Faith No More, I feel it's a bit misguided to use such tag. Their sound, even if I do fancy classification and I'm sometimes compulsive about it, is truly hard to pinpoint. There's many distinct stuff on here, there's instrumental tracks like the superb “Love Theme From Jesters on Parade” or the sample heavy closer “Ray's Theme”. The old school punk approach of “Incubus” is immediately followed by a poppy song called “Happy Times” that is as good as any of The Cure's strongest material and also reminds me of Dire Straits! That's certainly not for the young man who can't get enough of Masters of Puppets' apparent subtlety back in the day.

The diversity of the album has a rock solid direction, it's a true monument to songwriting. It has the efficacy of Tom Waits' greatest albums, an album like Rain Dogs  shines throughout its overture to musicality. Bruce Duff and Ray Violet (guitars, keyboards), the only two members that survived during the short existence of the band truly knew how to mix things up. Some glam here, some post punk/alternative rock there, some psychedelic kraut up your ass, some AOR and finally, the reason we're here: the heavy metal riffs and leads. All the components are all brothers and sisters on “Fun at the Funeral” and they all live in harmony.

Simply with the keyboard overture of the first track “Diggin' That Grave” and the heavy riff that follows, you immediately know how a psychedelic heavy metal band would sound. It's approaching a mix of the catchier side of NWOBHM mixed with psychedelia, it's almost as if The Flaming Lips decided to get drunk as fuck, stop their funny shenanigans and write metal songs.
 
The main element that makes this band so enjoyable is Bruce Duff's vocals. His delivery is pretty damn awesome and it has a wide appeal. He can play with his high voice like a theatre actor and he's interesting. He has a sort of classic rock flair and his choruses, sometimes idioyncratic like the self loathing “I Hate Bruce” or the genius “Crimson Umbrella”, are very catchy. Even though he's a clean vocalist with no roughness in his voice, it's not always quite accessible since he's using some weird vocal patterns mixed with the pop choruses.

Musically, it's pretty unique, they don't sound like anyone else. Nonetheless, you can spot some influences like Sabbath or Deep Purple but with the weirdness meter pushed to the maximum. They have a rich sound that is out of time and soft piano melodies are intertwined with hard rockin' heavy riffs. Loud bass, subtle riffs that don't always rely on their heavyness to mark the imagination, it's often about energy and fun. A sort of dark brooding attraction. It's not quite fast, not slow either, favoring a mid paced groovy approach. Judging by the bonus tracks like “House on the Hill”, they were going in a heavier direction.

Apparently Jesters of Destiny will release a new album soon, it will be quite interesting to see what they can do almost thirty years after this one. This is a classic album that everyone who's interested in unconventional music should check out.

Buy their stuff on Ektro Records.

Live Review: Ulcerate/Phobocosm/Chthe'ilist @Katacombes in Montréal, May 12th 2014

Chthe'ilist
 
The up and coming death metal from the Montréal south shore were back at the Katacombes after their impressive first gig at the first edition of Wings of Metal last year. They still don't have a bassist even though they're looking for one, kind of a shame that there's nobody who can join them, I would if I was a musician! Nonetheless, it's no biggie when there's two talented lead guitarists! 

Their thirty minute set killed everyone, the crowd was already numerous for the openers and that's always cool. Their crushing death metal sound is pretty damn good, it's technical without being showy, shallow and noodly (like their drummer's main death metal band Beyond Creation). After their great demo (try to pronounce the title), they're gonna release a full length (when? No idea, but soon) and I know they're shopping for a label and have many prestigious options (Profound Lore? Dark Descent? Roadrunner?).

Their stage presence was intense, mostly due to their energetic and talented session singer (Laurent Bellemare from Tribunal). The two guitarists had a good chemistery going on, they like the same stuff and it shows.

Alongside the second opener of this evening, they're the future of the Québec death metal scene, they're evolving with extrinsic influences (mostly from Finland, they covered a Demilich song) instead of praising at the altars of bands like Gorguts or Kataklysm.

A band to follow, for sure. Guided by Tougas, a shy and quiet talented promising young man, Chthe'ilist is destined to great deeds.

8,5/10



Phobocosm
 
With their debut full length scheduled to be released this Autumn by Dark Descent Records, Phobocosm are slowly making a name for themselves not only locally but internationally. The Montréal quartet played their, I believe, fifth gig tonight. I was lucky to see their first one back in 2012 when they opened for Adversarial.

Their brand of ultra dark death metal kills, it's midpaced, dirty but with a perfect and professional guitar tone. The drummer was also a beast behind his kit. The leader and composer Samuel Dufour formely of Towards Darkness and Vengeful is supported by another guitarist and it's adding a layer of evil atmosphere that's most welcome.Their songs are long, heavy and their sound inspired by the likes of Incantation and fellow cavernous death metal bands is distinct in the Québec scene. Maybe they're not quite original in the grand scheme of things but they sure know how to write somber catchy hooks and that's all that matters

Just like most of the Dark Descent roster, Phobocosm is quality stuff. Simply waiting for their debut album Deprived to come out so they can receive their due praise.

8/10


Ulcerate
 
Since Inter Arma dropped off the tour for some dates, Ulcerate were able to play a longer set to compensate! The New Zealand power dissonant trio offered almost eighty minute to the enthusiastic crowd. I've missed their first Montréal gig two years so it was a first time for me and I quite enjoyed the experience. I'm really not a fan of the technical death metal genre but Ulcerate is one of the exceptions since they don't rely on showy acrobatics and instead are subtle about the whole thing. I had no idea how well their atmospheric style would be transposed to a live setting since they're only three musicians but I was pleasantly surprised.

I think it works quite well since the guitars aren't quite the focus of their music, Jaime Saint Merat (drums, artwork...) is the obvious core of the entity. He's perhaps the best drummer in modern death metal, he destroys all competition. It seems that everything is build around his drumming to create a death metal harmonic monster. The three members are all bald weird looking dudes, it's like they meld together to form a six arms being completely overwhelming his opponents with his earnest formula.

The songs from their latest album Vermis  were really good live, even tough The Destroyers of All is perhaps my favorite release of theirs, it's harder to replicate these songs live since they're so intricate. Vermis, on the other hand, feels a bit like a more concise, maybe simplified version of TdoA. They're live friendlier and it's apparent throughout the set. They finished the evening with Everything is Fire though and that's probably their best song so it was an ideal choice.

Even though I missed the sixth game of the Montréal/Boston series, the Habs won so all is well! The dissonant pulse emanating the Katacombes helped the team defeat the Bruins!

9/10

Tarot - Life and Death DEMO (2014) / 82%

Deck of Wild Cards

Tarot is a newcomer to the metal scene with this first demo released on the small up and coming Australian label Heavy Chains. Pretty involved in the Tasmanian scene, the third tape release of this label named Life and Death rocks!

There's basically no information about this band outside the fact that they're Australian so I'll just pretend K.K. Warslut (Destroyer 666), Jael Edwards (Ignivomous) and the singer of Portal are involved! Just like the Canadian project Tales of Medusa (apparently dead nowadays, sadly, review: here!), there's a voluntary obscurity here for some unfathomable reasons. There's nothing shameful here, it's not raw keyboard only black metal with a picture of some trees on it, it's proto heavy metal/hard rock played by young men in 2014!

Let me just say something about their name, Tarot is a pretty unoriginal one for a new band... I know their music is truly inspired by the sounds of the 70s and 80s but guys, internet exists now and Google is a fantastic tool! Marco Hietela's band is not quite unknown, eh? Anyway, despite this shitty decision, the music is quite good and that's the important thing.

Their sound is basically a mix of old Deep Purple and Uriah Heep with a rawer approach almost reminding me of Manilla Road at times. The title track starts with intertwined heavy guitars and organ licks just like the heydays of Blackmore/Lord. The riffs are pretty nice, both groovy and mid paced to slower, epic moments like the pleasant, contemplative start of “Sound the Horn”. The keyboards are quite omnipresent on the fifteen minutes demo but it's never cheesy or AOR influenced. There's some cool and well done guitar leads here (such as the ending “Vagrant Hunter”), if I was as talented as the songwriters here, you would surely know that I would scream that everywhere! But yeah, I'm a pretentious jackass so...

The vocals, on the other hand, remind me of more recent bands. Namely the laid back approach of In Solitude. It's nothing spectacular but I really enjoy that kind of simple vocals acting as a little cousin to the instrumental side of the band which is obviously the focus point here. The singer is pretty buried underneath the music, it seems like an artistic decision since the production is, all things considered, very decent for a first demo.

The three songs demo is definitely interesting, it's nothing new and doesn't try hard to be either and that's perfectly fine for me when the quality is there! Alongside Stone Dagger (Read my review for their demo here), Tarot released one of the best heavy metal demos of the decade establishing them (or him, I have no idea how many members the band has...) as a future player of the underground traditional scene.

Choose your card wisely and trust me! With fellow Tasmanian The Wizar'd, they're delivering a devilish tornado of metal to the mainland. Like its cover art, Life and Death is simple yet impressive and charming. A band to watch, guys. 

Stream/download the demo here!

Ningen-Isu - Shigan Raisan (2011) 92%

人間椅子 - 此岸礼讃

Blue Light

Tony's note : During this review, I'll use romanized Japanese because it's way easier than having to copy the Japanese alphabet. It will also make things easier for you, the readers. Furthermore, the page of the album on the Metal Archives has the romaji translations of the songs in the additional notes so you can perhaps try to unveil the mystery behind their songs. Also refer to my two previous reviews!

This is my third review for this insane Japanese trio and true to their reputation, their 16th album (yes!) is still a rock solid release. Even if I wanted to repeat myself, it would be a rough thing to do since all their albums have their own differences but never without compromising on their long time mission and vision. Their varied approach is no exception on Shigan Raisan and its thirteen songs attack, the length of their albums is certainly one of the characteristics that is hard to handle for newcomers (I do hope there's some westerners discovering the band and I know I managed to get some people into them at least!)

The sixty-eight minutes release is rich, vast and explores many eras of their sound. Compared to their 90s stuff, there's a huge groove influence but rest assured, it's nothing like Pantera's awful material. It's more in the aesthetics of their craft, it's embracing a sort of modern, neat and mechanical production, it's also reflected in their guitar tone. I'll even proclaim that it's one of their most diverse album to date, it's melding the old school blues inspired heavy rock with progressive Rush-esque rock, progressive metal, doom metal, heavy metal and even thrash at times. Sometimes on the same song like the epic “Kochouran” and its eight minutes of intense, emotional songwriting. Their older influences are totally connected to the younger and well assimilated elements that came to life and it's creating a coherent, strong album.

The riffs are heavy and they have this danceable approach made possible by the airy production. Even though there's only guitarist, it's a constant attack both with the barrage of riffs, the melodic solos or even slide guitar on “Gusha No Rakuen” which is basically hard rock/blues in Japanese. This song is instantly followed by a three minutes Kill 'Em All inspired thrashy track, that's the perfect illustration of how the band works, they're coherently incoherent if you want.

There's still the vocals/language barrier to overcome but I think it's one of their most accessible album concerning these issues. It will once again be a deal breaker for certain people since you kind of need to be a Japanophile to like them. The relatively deep delivery of both singers (Kenichi and Shinji, the immortal core of Ningen-Isu who always handled everything except the drums) is pretty enjoyable for me, it's refresing and fun! The Japanese enunciation is simply hard to get used to when you're a foreigner and it can't be hidden beneath harsh vocals since they're not an extreme metal band!

Everything is weird in Japan, I recently discovered this awesome band called Koenjihyakkei (progressive rock, Zeulh) and the whole scene is full of jewels, Ningen Isu is perhaps the brightest though.

Here's two songs for your enjoyment: