Monday, 29 March 2021

White Magician/Prelude to Ruin – 2018 split / 93%

 

Uncut Gems

The fact that Demon Bitch and Borrowed Time (rest in peace) are assuredly the best American heavy metal bands of their era is a secret that more people should know. White Magician released one of the best albums of 2020 and their buddies of Prelude to Ruin are planning a release for 2021 (if my insider information is to be trusted) and both of those projects are related to the aforementioned bands. They happened to have released a split album back in 2018 and it’s pure fire. You shouldn’t expect otherwise if you were familiar with the people behind those bands.

White Magician is the entire Demon Bitch lineup except Brian, their bassist. Some of them play a different role here though, like Logon who plays bass or Derek who’s also tasked with the lead vocals in addition to his guitar task. While Demon Bitch play a super unhinged and insane sort of heavy metal, their other project leans more on pure traditionalism and is more Blue Öyster Cult than Mercyful Fate. One of things that I always like about the way those Detroit fellas write songs is that it’s completely devoid of posturing or attempts at mimicking the greats. It’s like if it was written in space with the distant memories of the bands they liked when they were still on Earth like the rest of us. Their ten minutes side starts with The Great Kaiser’s White Magician, an allegedly different entity, doing a two minutes introduction. It’s a high pitched guitar lead repeated alongside the name of the project and it’s, I have no idea why, fantastic. The bulk of their split side is obviously the track “Antipathy”, originally recorded in 2017 but re-recorded here. It’s a multidimensional epic showcasing everything the band can do. From the soft, almost 1970s Rush introduction to the agile, always pertinent riffs, the song is like a crescendo towards joyfully exuberant guitar leads concluding its eight minutes run-time. Like Demon Bitch, their guitar leads are great and always well placed and needed. They’re like icy daggers entering softly but firmly your body.

Their debut full length“ Dealers of Divinity” leaned even more into hard rock but the foundations were built before as White Magician are really great at crossing the line between rock and metal several times per song. While, without a doubt, they’re a metal band, they don’t burden themselves too much with that fact. The vocals are well thought out, melodic and powerful in their own ways. They don’t really strike me as metal vocals, the way they’re written is but the delivery is subdued, subtle and very interesting. Antipathy is an outstanding track, it’s as strong as anything they’ve released so far.


Prelude to Ruin is the new (or old) project formed by the Ruiz brothers who were both in Borrowed Time. I’m not totally sure who’s on this release except Victor and David Ruiz but nowadays, they’re joined by guitarist Matt Preston (Borrowed Time, Dungeon Beast, The Swill…) and other members of Borrowed Time, Demon Bitch/White Magician. It’s an incestuous family but… for the right reasons!

We’re served two relatively fast paced numbers with strong melodies and blistering guitar riffs. More rooted in power and even speedier metal than Borrowed Time were, there’s an almost epic power metal feel throughout the first song “Weird of the White Wolf”. They’re in that zone where USPM meets European power metal. Where the robust riffs of Liege Lord would hangout with the pre-symphonic ballsy power metal of Blind Guardian. Prelude to Ruin are the kind of band that heavy metal guitars fans want to hear. Their leads are oozing with skills, passion and thundering might. They’re the clear highlight of their identity even though the rest is also super solid.

While Jean-Pierre Abboud (vocals in Borrowed Time) is gone and there’s a small drop in talent on the mic, it’s still pretty damn dynamic and enjoyable. Speaking of J-P, I’ve never liked him as much as I did when he played with those guys, Traveler and Gatekeeper never used his skills as well. I think that’s also a proof that the Ruiz bros are hella good composers. The second song “One More Fight” has shrill, weird vox in its beginning to surprising but effective effects and overall, the high-pitched vocals work well with the speed demonstrated here. Unfortunately, the production is a bit too lo-fi and muffled for those two songs to truly truly shine and hopefully, this will be fixed for their upcoming material.

Overall this split release has two very strong sides with two bands clearly in possession of immense heavy metal skills. They’re two of the brightest gems the US metal underground produced, don’t sleep on ‘em.


White Magician's Bandcamp

Prelude to Ruin's Bandcamp

Sunday, 7 March 2021

Okkultokrati - La ilden lyse (2020)

Hiking Metal Punks

I discovered the Norwegians with their previous album, the excellent Raspberry Dawn (thanks to tomcat_ha for the recommendation, if I remember correctly) and I had relatively high expectations for their follow-up. 

The artwork of La ilden lyse reminds of Darkthrone's Arctic Thunder (covered by the Realm before) but that's not the only similarity they have with the legendary duo. Raspberry Dawn was much more rooted in kraut and psych rock, deeply reminiscent of Circle (coincidentally they also released their latest album on Southern Lord). It was, in a way, not a metal album. Their 2020 album returns to a blackened sound while still retaining some of those influences, it's gritty and belligerent but kept some of the psychedelic element that distinguished them from the pack. Their production is tight, condensed and packs a punch. There's just the right amount of rawness and it highlights the harsh black metal vocals quite well. The riffs alternate between psych fed punk, heavy metal and proto black metal and they're written in a repetitive fashion but they're freaking solid so it just puts them on a pedestal.

There's a lot of layers underneath what appears to be an unsubtle formula. There's synths in the (pretty far away) background adding a dimension that's not automatically perceptible at first. They're basically Motorhead as they're not as dumb as you would have thought but goes for the jugular at all times. It's fast, rock & roll-y but also pretty smart once you break their codes. There's super well written passages such as the atmospheric moods on "Kiss of Death"

Some bands are gonna announce that they'll branch out and include more and more influences in their sound and then fail to do so. Okkultokrati just unceremoniously does it and they do it with class and skill. Their biggest strength is their ability to combine a lot of different influences and do it in a super homogeneous way without never deviating from their main goal of riffing very fucking hard.