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.
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