Odium - The Sad Realm of the Stars

Obscurity can be both a blessing and a curse when it comes to black metal. On one hand, being lesser-known has its benefits in the form of a devoted fanbase, not to mention the underground appeal, but it also ensures that the greater works never get the recognition they deserve. One such work is The Sad Realm of the Stars, the debut (and only) full-length album by the Norwegian Symphonic Black Metal band, Odium. Released in 1998 via Nocturnal Art Productions, the album apparently received positive praise, but not much recognition, despite its placement alongside more relatively popular bands such as Limbonic Art. Only in recent times, with the 2013 remastering and repress on CD and LP by Blood Music, has the album started to become more widely known.

Symphonic Black Metal is a tricky genre to master, what with so many different bands utilizing it at great musical cost. Too subtle, and the symphonic aspect can seem like an afterthought and pointless, but too heavy and it degrades the black metal aspect, resulting in music that's mediocre at best and outright parody at worst (you know who you are). When mixed together just right, however, it can create art both haunting and mesmerizing. Thankfully, Odium pulls off the latter, with keyboard parts that provide atmosphere without minimalism, and musicality without being overwrought. These all blend together with skilled songwriting and harsh black metal, creating a cohesive work that truly sticks with the listener long after its 40-minute span has ended.

Despite the high praise for the symphonic aspect of the album, the album's representation of the genre's source is certainly not weak, either. There's plenty of tremolo picking lines and blast beats to be had here, but the moments where the album truly shines is when it slows down its pace to channel the astral melancholy that the music evokes. Astounding music can be found throughout the album, such as the central riffs on Through the Sorrowfilled Forest, the keyboards on Thy Eternal Nightfall, and the phenomenal title track. The only great shame is that the album holds little room for experimentation. The outro of the closing track, Riding the Starwinds, holds some outstanding choral clean vocals not dissimilar to Emperor, but still well-executed in their own right; far too good to be relegated to the last minute of the album.

The Sad Realm of the Stars is a perfect example of how Symphonic Black Metal should be done. Great riffs and melodies, memorable songs, and an effectively melancholic yet blistering atmosphere make this one of the best, yet most overlooked albums to come out of Norway during the 90s. With the recent Blood Music pressing, there's some hope that this album finally gets the exposure that it deserves.

Vinyl Report: Arch Enemy - Black Earth

 

Before I go any further, let me just do the standard introductory drivel. Vinyl Report is a new article series devoted to reviewing albums as well as the quality of their pressings as vinyl records. So pretty much, it's just me ripping off Metal-Fi wholesale. LET'S GET TO IT.

ARCH ENEMY - BLACK EARTH

Original year of release: 1996

First vinyl pressing release: 2002, Regain Records (1xLP, Black Vinyl, 33⅓ RPM)

Version used for review: 2010, Back On Black/Regain Records (1xLP, Clear Vinyl, 33⅓ RPM)

I could just open this review with all the standard ranting about how Arch Enemy was so much better before they switched vocalists and replaced songwriting with tits, but for the sake of this review, I'll just stick to this album on its own merits. Back when they first formed, Arch Enemy was something of a melodic death metal supergroup, with Michael Amott (guitarist of Carcass), his brother Christopher (making his debut appearance on this album playing guitar alongside Michael), Daniel Erlandsson on drums (having previously played on In Flames' seminal EP, Subterranean) and Johan Liiva (of Carnage, another band he performed in with Michael Amott) on vocals. With all of this previous experience, you couldn't really go wrong, and for the most part, this album succeeds on that front. It's a solid melodeath release that still holds up today.

The biggest issue that some listeners will hold with the album are Liiva's vocals, which, admittedly, take a bit of time to get used to. There's points on the album that his vocals are just "uh what", like his laugh-inducing outburst of "OH" on Idolatress, or his out-speeding the verse riff of Transmigration Macabre, leaving an awkward period in the middle of the verse with no vocals. Ultimately, though, the music itself surpasses these occasional screwups. Memorable riffs and hooks, accompanied with great solo-work courtesy of the Amotts is a constant throughout. Black Earth is a good album on its own, and is a great debut album for Arch Enemy, such as they were until the 2000s.

Black Earth wasn't pressed onto vinyl upon its inception, with its first release being in a limited run on standard black vinyl by Regain Records back in 2002. Since then, Back On Black has repressed the album (including a Japanese bonus track and two Iron Maiden covers) onto clear vinyl, with a gatefold sleeve including lyrics. I've always had a sweet spot for clear vinyl (and how can you not?), and this release, although a bit barebones, is relatively slick looking. The production of the album shines on the LP as well, with the guitar tone sounding extra crisp and the bass being more audible, as one would expect from a good vinyl pressing. Despite supposedly being a limited pressing, you can find this release going for around $15 on Amazon, which is shockingly cheap for the product. If you like good ol'-fashioned melodeath, you won't regret picking this one up.

NOTE: Century Media is pressing a 2xLP edition on black and yellow vinyl that includes the same tracks as this release, as well as a second LP of a live performance in Japan from 1997. This release is supposedly "remastered" and features new artwork, but given Century Media's idea of "production", I'd take a more cynical standpoint towards it until the final product is released.

At The Gates - Gardens of Grief EP

Slaughter of the Soul.

If there's a single release that anyone knows if you ask them about At The Gates, the seminal Gothenburg melodeath band that helped pioneer its distinctive sound and inspire thousands of imitators, it's that one, which is rather unfortunate considering how overlooked their previous releases are, despite them being of equal quality. Gardens of Grief was their debut EP, and would lay the foundation for the sound they would develop for the rest of their career.

The first thing made apparent on this EP is the limited use of keyboards. They're far from layered or overdubbed as in most symphonic black metal, but they add more of a somber mood not heard in any of their other releases. The production is raw, with guitars and vocals taking the center of the mix. This leads to the drums often being drowned out, especially the snare drum during blastbeats. The songs themselves, production aside, are quite good and, stylistically, are more death metal oriented than their later releases. All Life Ends is the highlight of the EP, with its complex song structure and funerary atmosphere being executed to a T. That's not to discourage the quality found in the other tracks, however, with At The Gates employing some great riffs and City of Screaming Statues hinting at a darker melodic aspect. (City of Screaming Statues would be rerecorded for the debut At The Gates record, The Red In The Sky Is Ours).

Gardens of Grief, while not as polished or as noteworthy as their full-length albums, is certainly worth finding for the already-initiated ATG fans familiar with their older material. It's an interesting release that holds some oft-underappreciated material and an atmosphere all its own.

Wolves' Winter - Spell of Necromancy

It's a scientifically-proven fact that wolves are the most black metal beings in the animal kingdom. It's also scientifically proven that Argentina isn't exactly the ideal country for black metal. Of course, black metal can be produced from anywhere, but any tr00 kvltist worth his Luciferian frost knows that the best results are from grim and frostbitten countries such as Norway. Spell of Necromancy is the debut demo of Argentinian raw black metal band Wolves' Winter, who, thus far, have not released anything since this save for a live recording and two tracks for a split. The real question, however, is not when they'll release new material, but if they should.

The first track, "Witchcraft", begins the demo with a minute or so of ambiance and wind samples before the raw-as-fuck guitars that we've all come to know and love burst in. Grim guitars, blast beats, howling vocals, all mixed together in a lo-fi production style... nothing too exemplary, but not bad. It's pretty much the same basic drill for all four tracks... except the third track, "Distant Horizons of the Spotless Mind". This is where the potential shines. The first half is very effective, mid-tempo black metal, with the guitar riff increasing in complexity until giving way to a blizzard of blast beats and some well-executed tremolo picking. The atmospheres evoked in this piece far surpass the monotony of the other three tracks.

There's plenty of potential for Wolves' Winter to be something superior to the "am I kvlt yet?" wave of black metal bands that's been cropping up these last few years. They could very well be Argentina's answer to projects such as Satanic Warmaster, if they continue down the promising path hinted at on "Distant Horizons...". I'm looking forward to their first full-length to see what comes of it.

Ulver - Nattens Madrigal - Aatte hymne til ulven i manden

I have been absolutely obsessed with this album for the last month now. I don't know exactly what the circumstances were for my love of Nattens Madrigal, be they mood, certain subjects of interest to me at the time, etc. But no matter the the reason, I immediately took to it and never let go. Although Nattens Madrigal is a 90s Norwegian black metal album, it is anything but simplistic, far surpassing bands like Burzum and Darkthrone to create a complex and musical album behind the walls of noise.

Ulver are a highly... polarizing band, to say the least. After their first three albums, each in a different style but all influence in some aspect or another by the 90s Norwegian Black Metal scene, they decided to leave their roots behind and start making avant-garde, industrial, electronica, dark ambient, 60s psychedelica, and other such genres. The discrepancy between the band's eras has caused much conflict among Ulver's fanbase. While I enjoy each of their albums, a special place in my library (and heart) is reserved for Nattens Madrigal - Aatte hymne til ulven i manden (or, in English, The Madrigal of Night - Eight Hymns To The Wolf In Man). And yes, that relatively lengthy title describes perfectly the contents of the music.

If you ask any random metalhead about Nattens Madrigal, chances are the first thing to come to mind is the production. The production here is almost indescribably raw and harsh, and I cannot deny that to the unseasoned ear, it will take quite a bit of getting used to. It may very well be a turn-off for some people. But that is not to say that the production quality is completely pointless, as I find it to be an extension of the atmosphere and musical content contained within. Despite the harsh, lo-fi sound, surprisingly, there is one aspect found here that almost no other black metal album ever provides: Beauty. The riffs are harsh, yet quite musical, with sections covering the gamut of human (or otherwise) emotions. Yet another aspect is the lyrical concept. The album is a tale of a man's transformation into a werewolf at the hands of Satan, and the events which transpire that mark his unholy gift as both blessing and curse. Although the lyrics themselves are written entirely in a Norwegian dialect, there are also English translations, which reveal the lyrics for what they truly are; some of the most haunting, almost romantic lyrics in all of black metal. The music reflects the story perfectly, with both unspeakable violence and haunting melody where called for.

In this manner, Nattens Madrigal stands as a testament to dichotomies. Nature's beauty and its relentless harshness. The wolf's majestic yet animalistic behavior. Human love and hate. Death as a part of life, and life as a part of death. No matter what your thoughts are on the music itself, it is without a doubt an experience that will stick with you for quite a while. Its morbid-yet-alluring atmosphere and poetic lyricism propel Nattens Madrigal beyond being simply "a black metal album" and into the realm of music as an art form. I absolutely recommend the album to any metalhead, as well as anyone interested in the concept of music as an art form, fans of Norwegian Gothic poetry, and those unconvinced of black metal's legitimacy as "music".

Standout tracks:
Hymne I - Of Wolf And Fear
Hymne III - Of Wolf And Hatred
Hymne VI - Of Wolf And Passion
Hymne VIII - Of Wolf And The Night

Audio Sadism: Metallica and Lou Reed - Lulu

DAMNIT.

NO.

WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS. IT BURNS. I WOULD HONESTLY RATHER HAVE WEASELS RIP MY FLESH THAN LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM AGAIN.

But alas, I must review this... "album" out of self-hatred and because I said I would in the last AS post. So, without further ado...



First, let me get this out of the way to appease naysayers (if there are even any who try to defend this album): I did listen to this whole album. TWICE. When I put myself through these albums I always put aside any preexisting notion of album quality, listen with a fresh mind, and try to find the best of it. But, both listens turned up empty. You heard me right. There is not a SINGLE REDEEMING QUALITY to this album. NONE WHATSOEVER.

The production is alright, I guess. I mean, it's overproduced and clipped to hell because "METAL IS LOUD \m/", but at least you can hear the instruments well enough, except for the bass, but this is Metallica after all. The concept could have worked if done by a group of musicians competent enough to actually pull it off convincingly. The album is based off of a series of controversial plays by the German playwright Frank Wedekind, and that in itself is loaded with potential! The stories are certainly dark and gritty, making it ripe for a metal concept album, and the play aspect makes it fitting for lengthy, progressive epics, recurring motifs, and other such thing. Hell, if this album were done by, say, Opeth, it'd be a masterpiece!

I can never not find a use for this picture.

But here's the thing: Metallica, with their collaboration with Lou Reed, are trying to be something they aren't. They're a thrash metal band, first and foremost (and a suffocatingly generic one at that); they simply aren't suited to the lengthy compositions that this type of subject material calls for. Before the album released, there was some possibility that Lou Reed, in all of his polarizing weirdness, might be able to bring the album past mediocrity, and if it did turn out to be shit, it'd certainly be spectacularly shitty. But, unfortunately, it seems like the bulk of the music was done by Metallica. Lou Reed's biggest contribution to this release is vocals. I know he's Lou Reed and he's supposed to be polarizing and avant-garde and all of that type of stuff, but here, he simply sounds like an old man, and that, combined with the lyrical content of the album, raises the album to new heights of disturbing mental imagery. Take the first track, Brandenburg Gate, and envision this: C-major tuned acoustic chords start the track off, and it all sounds swell, maybe even exciting, when SUDDENLY YOU GET AN OLD MAN STATING THAT "I WOULD CUT MY LEGS AND TITS OFF WHEN I THINK OF BORIS KARLOFF AND KINSKI"

And that's among the least cringeworthy of Lou Reed's vocal sections. 

For me, it's not the lyrical content itself, I mean it's certainly unnerving, but there's a difference between unnerving to get across the intended concept, and then there's creepy-perverted old dude unnerving. Maybe if these lines were done by a guest female singer or something, it'd be much improved. But nope, we're stuck with Lou Reed and James Hetfield doing this. With James Hetfield's backing vocals repeating "Small-town giiiiiiirrrrllll!" amidst Lou Reed's creepy old-dude vocals, you'd think that this was an elaborate joke on the fans. And let's not even delve into Hetfield's now-infamous outburst of "I am the table!" on The View. Special mention goes to Little Dog, the second track of disc two, for being pure, unadulterated WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING.

And then there's the repetition. Oh, GODS, the repetition. On the fourth track, Mistress Dread, the first riff is an almost decent Metallica-caliber one, finally kicking the album into the long-awaited thrash metal experience that Metallica are known for! ...And then it keeps going. And going. For the rest of the song. Which also happens to be seven-minutes long. Later, the second-disc song Dragon seems to show some promise with the building-up of the central riff and the increasing heaviness and speed, but again, it's the same riff being repeated for 11 minutes, UNINTERRUPTED. It's literally the only riff in the song! There's verse-chorus-verse song structure with some repetition, and then there's second-wave black metal repetition, AND THEN THERE'S THIS. Sure, the repetition might not be as bad if the riffs were some really great ones, but these are among the most simplistic and generic riffs that Metallica has ever released. (Even by Metallica standards!) That, combined with Lou Reed's aforementioned creepy-old-guy vocals already negates 95% of anything this album had going for it. Case-in-point, the final track, Junior Dad. It's twenty minutes long, and at least ten of those minutes consist of a strings section playing the exact same chords. The orchestra apparently does perform throughout the album, but I barely noticed it, and it's a damn shame that they were consigned to THIS.

It's boring. It's pointless. It's poorly-executed. It's Lulu, the much-maligned collaboration between Metallica and Lou Reed, and rightfully so as I have borne witness to. Some concepts are better left to memory, for the sake of mankind. I'd say it deserves to be heard just for how much of an atrocity it is, but hearing this entire album is a fate I would wish on no man. If you want experimental Metallica, check the Load albums. If you want Metallica with an orchestra, check the S&M live performance. Spare your sanity and forget that this album exists. 

Krallice - Diotima

Picture, if you will, the very concept of music. At its core, it is merely arrangements of sound that some may find pleasing. To the listener, however, music transcends what it is composed of to stimulate the listener's mind and even his soul at times. Each piece of music, in its own way, creates a world, some glimpse of another plane within the human mind, some more so than others. Diotima, the third album by New York progressive metal band Krallice, is one such work; each song a piece of the darkly serene world that the work as a whole creates, one of chaos, yet beauty amongst its ruins.

The intro track "-" (This review may be pretentious as hell, but even I can't justify that title) is brief, but sets the scene efficiently, where tremolo picking and blast beats combine to weave a dark tapestry. It gives way to a solemn guitar riff, which itself crossfades into the feedback of Inhume. There are few moments like this on the album, the other two such moments occurring on the title track and Telluric Rings, but these moments are a stark reminder that despite the beauty of the landscape, its jagged mountains and foreboding gloom still render these lands hostile and uninviting. Krallice are not a band known for being "evil" or "brutal", but the atmospheres evoked by these passages are quite dark indeed, and would work well if reworked into a black metal album. (Note: I don't consider Krallice to be black metal, despite their classification as such. If an artist uses the techniques of surrealism in addition to his own skills and vision, the painting is not exclusively a surrealist work.) Despite the overall solemnity of the album, there are still plenty of points at which some hint of celestial essence can be seen, as moonlight penetrating the clouds. The riff at 5:26 on Inhume, which is repeated shortly after, is an example of this, as is the first climax of Telluric Rings at 6:41.

A work of art is only as quality as its artist, and on that front Krallice certainly deliver. The twin vocalists, Mick Barr and Nick McMaster, complement the surrounding music perfectly, and, while some may find Barr's higher-pitched vocals grating, the album takes more of a focus on McMaster's growls, which are the deepest they've been throughout their discography on this record. The dual guitarwork of Barr and Colin Marston always strikes a balance between flashy and reserved, with solos used sparingly. Special mention goes to McMaster on bass duty; his playing does not mirror either of the guitars, but cuts its own path to augment the surroundings, often to the effect that lesser bands try to accomplish with over-the-top keyboards or orchestras. His work is the subtle undercurrent to the rest of the band's waves.

The album holds plenty of stand-out moments, but the most interesting of which to my ears is the track "Litany of Regrets". The production is compressed heavily, not to produce a lower sound quality overall, but to create a sort of motion to the song based around the bass drum pedal. The song keeps a consistent up-beat tempo throughout, which combined with the aforementioned compression, lends the track a sort of hypnotic quality. The music itself is heavily focused on repetition, with occasional theme changes, but ultimately returning to the central riff. "Litany of Regrets" is essentially the modern metal realization of an ancient shamanic trance ritual, a theme with the lyrics touch upon as well: "And the anchorite dreams/He dreams a shaman carving blood unto/Darkened cavern ribs/While shadows dance/To the ecstatic rhythms/Of the Pacan/He dreams of pages of gossamer and spider web/Whose words will not survive their altercation back to dust." The repetition may easily be seen as a weakness, but it fits the concept quite well. The album ends with another example of one of the things Krallice does best; taking a moment and building upon it until it envelops the listener. While not as bombastic as the last minutes of "Monolith of Possession" (from their previous album, Dimensional Bleedthrough), the outro of "Dust and Light" is a more than satisfying conclusion to Diotima, providing a fitting end to the sonic journey through forgotten lands.

In conclusion, Diotima must be viewed as a whole work, not on a song-by-song basis. It, like all Krallice albums, is not to be viewed on merits of its status as "metal", although to the patient listener, it has more than enough moments to satisfy those listeners as well. It crafts a world within the listener's mind, and then guides him on a journey, bearing witness to both beauty and savagery. If you are a fan of music as an artistic medium, or simply like quality progressive metal, Krallice is certainly a band to check out, with Diotima as another shining example of their status as craftsmen of sonic landscapes.