Lately, I’ll be honest, symphonic metal has kind of fallen by the wayside for me. So when I got into the first track of this album, the first couple of times, I was a bit hesitant. Then, waiting for the train, I had it playing in my ears with a backdrop of Aussie birds. It made the whole experience very different, much more eerie and evil. These guys are black and symphonic and experimental. The latter is important because they have presented us with an artwork deserving of close attention.

The black metal elements are all nicely handled. Kicking off into track two, and then throughout the release, the integration between the symphonic, the black, and the strangely clean, is completed with aplomb.

It’s an interesting album for a commuter. I found that it was frustrating heading to work with this accompaniment. The train was too slow for it for some reason, but kicking along at a good speed it was more satisfying.

This is, too, perhaps just my perspective, given that the trip back home (facing the weekend no less) was better. In a car, interestingly, it wasn’t so good. You have to pay attention to The Asthenic Ascension to get the most out of it. Also, and this is an important point, you get more from it in a headphones listening session. There are things going on within harmonies, samples, and general construction that you appreciate more with a closer listen.

Towards the end of track four, aptly titled Psalm IV, the screaming and sobbing woman was a lovely contrast to the fresh sea of armpits, in which I was immersed in such a normal setting as the commuter train. It did actually cause me to think that, somewhere in the world, all of us regular jackoffs are going to work while some bastard is torturing someone, probably in a scummy outpost in suburbia.

It was a sobering thought. But it was presented, dare I say it, in a mature and thought-provoking sort of way. It’s the kind of thing that metal is great at: firing people out of their normalcy and bringing something new to one’s consciousness. I doubt that other people will have the same reaction, but it was significant enough that it threw me into spinning vortices of philosophical thought.

REVERENCE have brought us an album that is excellent in and of itself. It’s a grower, too, I think. With subsequent listens, its hooks claw themselves deeper into you. Unlike some bands, whose albums grow on you over an interminable amount of time, I think that this one will grow to a point. It’s excellent but it isn’t outstanding.

I haven’t thrown this album into a shuffle either. Its tracks would be good in one, but the album deserves to be held as a freestanding piece of art.

All fans of the eerie, black, symphonic will get something out of this. And I even suggest that in a series of albums, it would be bookended quite nicely by SIGH’s early works, up to and including Scenario IV.

I’m not going to comment on how The Asthenic Ascension fits into the discography because, incredibly, I haven’t heard it. I will, though, now. I’ve been impressed enough to go and find as much as I can. And that alone is recommendation enough for this release.

REVERENCE’s The Asthenic Ascension is out on 9 April 2012.

Past posts you might dig:

1. [commuter review] AURA NOIR – Out to Die (Indie Recordings)
2. The Commuter Review
3. [commuter review] SIGH – In Somnophobia (Candlelight)

Max Cavalera is living legend in metal. Many of the older metalheads vividly remember him as the charismatic frontman of Sepultura. Back in 1996 Max left his old band and shortly after a resurfaced with a new band, called Soulfly. His career kept on flourishing while Sepultura steeply declined after releasing a couple of haphazard albums. Despite Max’s recent reunion with his brother Igor under the Cavalera Conspiracy guise, Soufly is still his main musical vehicle. Enslaved is the title of his latest musical venture.

Enslaved is first and foremost an excersise in Max’s hardcore and thrash metal roots. There are even some death metal flourishes here and there, courtesy of bassist Tony Campos (Prong, Ministry) and former Borknager skinsman David Kinkade. Unlike on the first three Soufly records, extensive forays into world music, dub and reggae are virtually non-existent on Enslaved. Only On “Gladiator” and “Redemption Of Man By God” “American Steel” and “Revengeance” is there some room for some more experimental parts.

The common thread through all Soufly albums is Max Cavelera’s familiar bark, his profound love for straightforward guitar riffs and powerful choruses. ‘World Scum”, “Gladiator” and “Legions” are poignant examples of how potent the old Cavelera formula still is.

A special mention should go the refined guitar playing by Marc Rizzo. His tasteful leads and solos add a level of sophistication to the Soulfly song material and it acts as the perfect counter balance for the straightforward and brute force which characterises Maxs’ style of playing. Each Soulfly album features a couple of guest musicians and Enslaved is no exception to that rule. This time around DevilDriver frontman Dez Fafara added some screams on “Redemption Of Man By God”. Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitated fame did the same on “World Scum”.

The production chores were skillfully handled by Zeuss (Hatebreed, Agnostic Front) and Max himself. They gave Enslaved a direct, yet gritty sound. This enhances the overall aggressive feel of this album.

Drummer David Kinkade described Enslaved as “Arise on crack”. I think he’s right on the money there, because this album matches the ferocity and class of that famous landmark in Sepultura’s history. Soulfly may not be the cutting edge band it once was, but it’s still a relevant bulwark of power in today’s metal scene. Enslaved is a poignant celebration of Max Cavelera’s musical vision and his longivity.

Great album!

Past posts you might dig:

1. GUEST REVIEW: Trivium – In Waves (Roadrunner)
2. ENSLAVED to hit Europe Feb/Mar 2012
3. RELEASE REVIEW: Lamb of God – Resolution (Roadrunner)

Oh, SIGH. The creepiest of the weird offensive Japanese black metal. Thou art amazing on the train.

Cover art. As amazing as the music.

Years ago, long after I first got into this band, I recall taking a copy of Ghastly Funeral Theatre to work and asking a Malaysian girl who spoke Japanese to translate some of it for me.

She refused to touch it. She looked at it once and then tremblingly stated, “No! Is too evil!”

I was well impressed.

Since those days, Sigh have produced some crazy soundscapes. They’re the sort of band that really ought to be billed on Future Music Festival for the sheer intellectualism with which they approach definitions of music, and of listener affect.

The only band that really comes close is Gnaw Their Tongues. And they are fucking amazing for this sort of shit, just in a slightly different way, coming from different roots.

I say all this after spending two train trips and the surreal walk to, and into, work, with Sigh’s latest, In Somnophobia, blasting in my ears.

Picture sitting on the train with intensely layered sounds playing all around you. Some of them you can’t quite touch. Some are from the circus. Some are from horrific movies. Some are sexy, hook-filled montage soundtracks. Some are evil, gothic, operatic soundtracks that occur in strange physical theatres. The remainder would not be out of place in an Argento film.

All of it painted with a brush redolent of the Sigh you know and love. Indeed, some of the piano pieces will be familiar to the Sigh fan.

I sat amongst tens of regular jackoffs, drifting to all sorts of places with this release. I wandered with the commuter crowds into my work building, mesmerized and unwilling to remove my headphones. The trip home after work was twice as exciting as usual.

If half the commuters had turned into pink elephants and started slaughtering each other, I was listening to the perfect accompaniment.

I’m still not done with this album. There is so much to it that it will take me months and months to feel all of its pieces.

True to form, this release is best through headphones. It loses a vast amount of its ouvre on a stereo. Seriously.

It’s just not short enough for a commute album, though. It’s long enough, and engaging enough, to do you for a couple of days. Or commutes and lunch. Maybe a week if you only listen to it on the train, and set to “constant absorption”.

But be warned that your brain will be playing with it after you’ve put it away and started work, so you’ll be ineffective for at least the duration of your first coffee of the day. Tell your colleagues you’re tired. They’ll believe you! They believed me!

This album is fantastic. Highly recommended – especially for the manic end of your working week.

To quote a sample from track 10: “we are… No longer the same.”

SIGH’S IN SOMNIPHOBIA IS IN STORES IN MARCH 2012.

Past posts you might dig:

1. The Commuter Review
2. [RELEASE REVIEW] Corpus Christii – Luciferian Frequencies (Candlelight Records)
3. BOOK REVIEW: No Regrets, by Ace Frehley

It has become that time of my life again where I am a public transport commuter. Rather than waste the time, I’ve decided to write a new column.

In The Commuter Review, I will bring to you reviews of new metal releases that have accompanied me on train trips to and/or from work.

Except, this column has particular requirements in addition to your average review.

Such as, can the album be listened to in one average train trip (typically, for me, half an hour)? Is it an album you’d shove onto shuffle amongst a pile of other albums? Is it good enough at helping you forget the hundreds of regular jackoffs amongst which you have to travel?

And so on.

The first one you can expect is of SIGH’s forthcoming release, In Somniphobia. Mainly because the promo material states that it’s best through headphones. Perfect!

What do you think? Oh, and if you have an album you want me to review for the column, drop a comment and let me know!

Past posts you might dig:

1. Release review: Paindivision – One Path (Riot Entertainment)
2. Release Review: AS I LAY DYING – This is Who We Are DVD (Metal Blade/Riot)
3. [Release Review] DAWN OF RETRIBUTION – The Plan to End Humanity (independent)

In my most recent addition to the collaborative essay project, I mentioned that analysis and assessment of a work of art on its own merits is what defines critique.

It’s not easy to turn your mind to music criticism when you’re reading literary, theatre, film, or art critics. Very few music critics are held in high enough esteem – generally speaking – to warrant a place amongst the literary canon of a country. Much to my discomfort about where the “powers that be” place music (let alone rock or metal specifically) on a cultural scale… which is kind of beside the point.

Anyway. Here are  FIVE tips to get your critical juices running. Enjoy!

1. Listen to the album as though it stands alone.

This means, “forgetting” that it comes from a discography of works. Ignore the fact that the band who released it might have been around for twenty or thirty years. Put completely out of your mind what you thought of their previous release, or the label that they’re on, or who produced the album, or where it was recorded, or fucking anything.

Listen to the album for what it is: a singular recording, in a singular instance, of a particular genre. How does it hold up, against itself… musically?

2. Listen to the album taking into consideration its lyrics, artwork, and construction

Read the lyrics, pore over the artwork, consider the construction of the album: its song lengths, how the songs are written, why the musical construction is good or bad. Consider the song sequencing: is it good, could it be better, could some intros be dispensed with? What could have made it a steller piece. Remember, you’re still thinking about the album as a singular entity.

3. Listen to the album again and write down everything you hate about it.

Once you’ve done this, get a beer, or a cup of tea, or sit with your notes and a smoke, and consider carefully – away from the recording! – why those points are points that you don’t like. How much of what you don’t like is personal taste? How much is expectation? How much has got to do with the album itself?

Set to one side all of the points you don’t like that are extraneous to the album (expectations, personal taste, personal quirks, politics, whatever). You might want to draw on them later.

Now, consolidate the points that you have that pertain solely and exclusively to the album as a singular entity. Remember: an album is a package: music, construction, production, lyrics, artwork.

4. Listen to the album again and write down everything you love about it.

As before, once you’re done, take a break, and consider – away from the recording! – why you like those things. Again, set aside everything that comes down to personal taste, expectations, etc etc.

Consolidate the points that pertain exclusively and solely to the album as a singular entity.

5. Compare your notes, now make some more notes.

Leave the album turned off unless you want to check something.

When you set them side-by-side, your notes will tell you very clearly whether, on a global scale, you like or dislike an album.

What you have to do now, is sketch in further notes, but keep them kind of separate if you can. Separate sheets of paper, separate files, whatever. How did the release make you feel, as a listener? How did it make you feel, as a critic? What would improve the release, and why? Did the band try anything that didn’t work, and how do you know that it didn’t work?

Then get further and further away from the release.

How was the production? What’s the artwork like, and how does it make you feel about the album?

Where, in which subgenre, does the release sit? Where, in the band’s overall history and stereotyped subgenre, does the release sit? Is there a conflict, and why does it exist, do you think? Bring your intelligence to bear on these notes! Give yourself some credit. Can you compare the album to the band’s other works, and why or why not, and are you willing to admit it if you can’t? Can you research them? If you can, go forth!

Importantly: don’t give yourself a deadline. If you have an editor screaming I need this in 24 hours! (ahem, I was guilty of that with my writers), ask them if they want a shitty review or a decent critique. Chances are, unless they have labels screaming in their ears, they’ll wait.

BONUS POINT 6. Start to pull your notes together.

If you want to be considered a critic and not a run-of-the-mill reviewer, you want a distanced, sparse critique. You want to be able to assess the piece of art on its own merits, so write your review like this. Keep your language simple. Leave your arrogance, pomposity, big words, fandom, geekiness, and attitude at your front gate. Speculate about the “global” level stuff if you want to, but do it after you have already assessed and critiqued the work.

If you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to write a very nice little essay, that has a story to it. You can bring your notes together with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That story might be of your experience of the release, pure and simple. It might be of your experience of the release, in the context of your experience of the band itself. It might be a story of production, where you want to highlight the production values of this album, and feel you can do it better by telling a story in which this album is the protagonist.

You don’t have to stick to one structure in a good critique. The best are mini essays. The best tell stories. The best engage people.

The worst are full of gush, rank albums out of five or ten, give us very little information, and pat themselves on the back. That is what a reviewer does. You want to be a critic. So start thinking like one.

Past posts you might dig:

1. Aspiring music journalists: think ‘criticism’, beware adjectives
2. Music Journalism 101 – free online course*
3. On interviews and credibility 1: metal music journalism

Written by Tom Valcanis. His third essay in our collaborative series.

One of the ironies of “critical rock journalism,” writes cultural studies theorist Andy Brown is “that it is operated in a hegemonic fashion across the popular music market in the period of its pomp, willfully obscuring its actual commercial dynamics and its cultural and institutional role in shaping the rock canon and the rock audience.”  Critical rock journalism by its reliance on advertising dollars and the industry for its own copy or sellable capital (interviews from artists, advanced promo copies, etc.) is “inauthentic” by journalistic standards. The stories on artists or the industry, even if they do not engage with the sources directly service the music creators and copyright holders; those who have everything to gain from words being printed about them. What differentiates the “trade paper” or the “mainstream” from the “cool” or the “genuine” is a concept known as “authenticity” or “cultural capital.” But how do publications and journalists wield it and accumulate it? We must first deconstruct authenticity as an abstract and observe it in “action.”

Cultural capital is conferred on certain publications, granting them a subcultural “rock authority.” This gives rise to the conception of cultural capital as “cool” or “authenticity.” Whether its journalism thrives in the underground “zine” culture or written for “payola,” traditionally known as the act of labels paying deejays or journalists to promote certain artists, cultural capital is closely linked with “monetary” capital.

With the invention of the printing press and other more advanced technologies such as the internet and television, the “eye becomes more important than the ear” – a system of signification and meaning emerges in the form of a subculture with its own discrete and extensional rituals.  Thus we can point toward a rock subculture with its own internal consistencies and tendency for self and other identification. According to the philosopher Heidegger, authenticity is defined to “be one’s own self, as part of the history of one’s community.” In a broader philosophical context, authenticity is to say:

“that his or her actions truly express what lies at their origin, that is, the dispositions, feelings, desires, and convictions that motivate them. Built into this conception of authenticity is a distinction between what is really going on within me – the emotions, core beliefs, and bedrock desires that make me the person I am – and the outer avowals and actions that make up my being in the public world…We commonly suppose that authenticity has a considerable value even if it does not produce such extrinsic goods as wealth, fame, or pleasure.”[1]

The image of a rock band according to rock scholar and critic Simon Frith must have certain characteristics for it to be accepted as “authentic” by people who self-identify as part of the rock subculture and its various sub-divided subcultures almost as much as the sound and arrangement of the music, and be recognized as part of the “subcultural sphere” of rock music. If an artist exists in a rock subculture which is overwhelmingly dominated by corporate interests, how can an artist stay “authentic?” How can a “rocker” such as Bruce Springsteen dress like a working-class, thirty-seven year old “teenager” and be celebrated for it despite his multi-million dollar success?

GO HERE TO READ THE FULL ESSAY. You know you want to. 

Past posts you might dig:

1. REBLOGGED: The Graduate School of Rock: Scholars sculpting rock into art
2. REBLOGGED: Push-Button Professionalism: The origin and evolution of the role of professional music critics
3. The State of Play: balancing critical rock journalism with demands for content

Eight years we have waited. I wish I had never heard this album.

Past posts you might dig:

1. Release Review: DEATH ANGEL – Sonic German Beatdown: Live in Germany (Nuclear Blast/Riot)
2. Morbid Angel Australian Tour – June 2009
3. [Release Review] DAWN OF RETRIBUTION – The Plan to End Humanity (independent)

Get your metal on! The latest metal news that’s fallen across my desk.

Enjoy \m/ SUBMIT YOUR NEWS HERE.

IGNOMINIOUS INCARCERATION changed names

I know this is relatively old news but in case anybody missed it, I figured I’d post it here again. I was reminded by emails from the very lovely Talita. So if you’re looking for this band, stop! You need to look for THE SOULLESS instead. Their new release, Isolated, is out on Earache Records on 16 May.

Earache to release limited MORBID ANGEL digipaks

With the upcoming new album from MORBID ANGEL (which I’m not going to mention until I post my review here, for reasons that will become obvious), Earache are releasing Covenant, Blessed Are The Sick and Domination as strictly limited digipaks. And you get posters with them. These will be out in July 2011, so if you want or need some old-school Morbid Angel, get your hands on these babies.

NUCLEAR release new videoclip

The brutal Chileans NUCLEAR have released a new videoclip for their track Criminal Solicitation. Watch it below.

VOIVOD to release live album in the US via Sonic Unyon Metal

Sonic Unyon Metal is extremely proud to announce the confirmed upcoming release of a live album from the almighty VOIVOD!

Late in 2009, VOIVOD released their live Tatsumaki DVD, filmed the previous fall when they toured Japan for the first time ever. To celebrate its release of the DVD, VOIVOD performed in front of a sold-out crowd on December 12th, 2009 at Club Soda in their adopted hometown of Montreal, Quebec. It was their first headlining show in the city of Montreal in more than ten years and it was celebrated in grand style. It was a fitting end to a busy year that saw them named Metal Band Of The Year at the 2010 Indie Awards in Canada. The show was recorded for posterity and is now being released as the fifteen-track Warriors Of Ice, the first official VOIVOD live album to feature original band members Denis ‘Snake’ Belanger on vocals and bassist Jean-Yves ‘Blacky’ Theriault, as well as new guitarist Dan “Chewy” Mongrain.

Set for release on June 21, 2011, Warriors Of Ice highlights the classic period of the original VOIVOD lineup as well as a few new songs, all raging with the band’s notorious live energy. Containing songs from their classic albums, spanning from 1984’s War And Pain right up through 1991’s Angel Rat, as well as two songs from their 2009 Infini LP, the album is built of VOIVOD’s signature songs, from “Voivod” and “Nuclear War” to “Tribal Convictions” and “Astronomy Domine.” View the cover art for Warriors Of Ice — designed by drummer Michel Langevin, a.k.a. Away, as always – and more at this location.

Warriors Of Ice Track Listing:

01. Voivod
02. The Unknown Knows
03. The Prow
04. Ripping Headaches
05. Ravenous Medicine
06. Tribal Convictions
07. Overreaction
08. Panorama
09. Global Warning
10. Treasure Chase
11. Tornado
12. Nothingface
13. Brain Scan
14. Nuclear War
15. Astronomy Domine (Pink Floyd cover)

The 15-track set captured on Warriors Of Ice is undeniably packed with VOIVOD fan favorites, making it an absolute must-have release for diehard fans and a great starting point for the uninitiated as well. This is the main set VOIVODravaged their audiences with on their 2010 US tour alongside Kreator, and at their headlining slot at the 2010 Scion Rock Fest.

VOIVOD are currently touring Europe, and will begin to assault the North American masses again this May when they are scheduled as one of the top headliners of the 2011 Maryland Deathfest. Stay tuned for more North American tour dates to be announced in the coming weeks.

EVILE reveal album title and concept

British thrashers EVILE have officially revealed that their forthcoming new album will be titled Five Serpents’ Teeth. And if you follow Ol Drake on Twitter, you’ll have been seeing excited little tweets for the past few months about the new album.

EVILE recorded the highly-anticipated new album at Parlour Studios in Kettering, UK, with producer RUSS RUSSELL (NAPALM DEATH, DIMMU BORGIR), who also recorded the band’s previous release, 2009′s Infected Nations.

Vocalist and rhythm guitarist MATT DRAKE has recorded a video message for the fans, in which he discusses the new album and the concept behind it. Watch it here:

EVILE lead guitarist OL DRAKE comments on Five Serpents’ Teeth:

“The other day, Russ sent the final masters for the album over.  It sounded even better than I expected it to.  The past two years of hard work, and the work put in in the studio, have really paid off.  The few people who’ve heard the album so far have praised it highly, making me, and us, very proud.  The album has such a unique production sound which surprised me; Russ’ skills have really shined on this record.  It has an old classic sound, while staying huge and menacing.  Keep an eye out for all things Evile, as 2011 will be a very busy year for us.  See you on A road!”

Five Serpents’ Teeth will be out on Earache Records on 29 August 2011.

NOKTURNEL frontman inks endorsement deal with Halo Guitars

NOKTURNEL founder, and frontman Tom Stevens has announced that he is now endorsed byHalo Custom Guitars. Tom is now tearing it up on the Halo “Inverted”, and had this to say:

“I have been known to punish my guitars with Nokturnel’s music and there have been a few that did not survive. After looking at what Halo had to offer I chose my weapon and went with a guitar that had the hardware I wanted, set up in the Key I chose, made by a company that understands what modern guitar players need in an instrument. I chose The Inverted, in Black of course, with a 24 fret neck, Kahler tremelo and Halo’s own Active Pickups which simply kick ass. This guitar’s design is perfect for me with the toggle switch located way out of the way as well as the knobs being away from the bridge which suits my insane high speed demands. I beat the crap out this guitar within minutes of taking it out of the box and it is just killer! Halo has so much to choose from, I will be considering other amazing guitars including a custom extended neck soon. I cannot wait to record some home video of me shredding this new guitar!”

“The Inverted will be my main guitar now, and with Maryland DeathFest only a few weeks away the timing of this weapon falling into my greedy hands is perfect! I’d like to thank Halo for coming through for me after I destroyed my last guitar, and for being the kind of company that recognized the need for heavy as fuck strings, down tuned instruments, extended necks and 6,7,8, and 10 string guitars for the maniacs!”

Catch Tom Stevens, and Nokturnel LIVE on Sunday, May 29th at Maryland Deathfest. Other upcoming live dates include A Day of Death July 16, 2011 in Buffalo N.Y., Friday Aug. 12, with MACABRE, and WITHERED in San Antonio, and The Goregrowlers Ball Fri. Nov. 18, 2011, in San Antonio Tx.

The latest Nokturnel single Ancestral Calling is still available for free download via the Nokturnel Reverbnation page.

SHADOWSIDE unveils Inner Monster Out cover art

Brazil’s rising heavy metal act SHADOWSIDE has revealed the cover art for the band’s upcoming studio album Inner Monster Out on the official Shadowside Facebook page. Artwork for the June digital release comes courtesy of Felipe Machado of New Dimensions Art (BLIND GUARDIAN, RHAPSODY OF FIRE, JORN LANDE, PAGAN’S MIND).

Inner Monster Out, SHADOWSIDE’s third full-length record, will be available for digital download next month on SHP Records.
Shadowside will film a music video for the first single Angel With Horns later this month in Campinas, Brazil with director Thiago Pinheiro of Studio Kaiowas.

“The song is about someone trying to escape their own boring reality by putting their hopes in one disturbing and mysterious person that’s pure evil, though innocent as an angel at the same time,” said vocalist Dani Nolden.

The track list for Inner Monster Out is…
1. Gag Order
2. Angel with Horns
3. Habitchual
4. In the Name of Love
5. Inner Monster Out (featuring Björn “Speed” Strid, Mikael Stanne, and Niklas Isfeldt)
6. I’m Your Mind
7. My Disrupted Reality
8. A Smile Upon Death
9. Whatever Our Fortune
10. A.D.D.
11. Waste of Life

Inner Monster Out was produced, mixed, and mastered at Studio Fredman in Gothenburg, Sweden by Fredrik Nordström (ARCH ENEMY, AT THE GATES, BRING ME THE HORIZON, IN FLAMES), and features guest vocals from the likes of Björn “Speed” Strid (SOILWORK), Mikael Stanne (DARK TRANQUILITY), and Niklas Isfeldt (DREAM EVIL).

SOURVEIN: North Carolina doom squadron prepare to unleash new full length

North Carolina doom troupe, SOURVEIN, are gearing up to unleash their long-anticipated new album entitled Black Fangs. Slated for release in North America on 21 via Candlelight Records, the newest full-length since 2002′s Will To Manglefeatures ten tracks of gritty, low-ended, feedback-soaked, sludge metal brilliance spearheaded by founding vocalist T-Roy.

Check out Night Eyes streaming now courtesy of The Obelisk HERE.

Black Fangs Track Listing:

1. Fangs

2. Society’s Blood

3. Night Eyes

4. Gasp

5. Holy Transfusion

6. Flux

7. Nomadic

8. Gemini

9. Bleeding Charm

10. Nocturnal/Negative Phaze

Formed by T-Roy in 1993, SOURVEIN have released three full length albums as well as a trilogy of EPs and various split recordings with the likes Buzzov*en, Bongzilla, Rabies Caste, Negative Reaction, Grief, Subsanity and Church Of Misery. The band also contributed to the Eyehategod tribute record, For The Sick with a cover of Broken Down But Not Locked Up.

Past posts you might dig:

1. Shrapnel: bits and pieces of metal (news)
2. Shrapnel: bits and pieces of metal (news)
3. Shrapnel: bits and pieces of \m/etal

The forthcoming WHILE HEAVEN WEPT release is a must for every fan of the band.

Beautiful art, as always

Virginian metallers, WHILE HEAVEN WEPT, hold a special place in my heart – but I don’t need to go into why. That’s a conversation for another time. I first became a fan on hearing Vast Oceans Lachrymose, their epic doom release of 2009. I fell in love with it, and went back to their other full-length releases, Sorrow of the Angels (1998) and Of Empires Forlorn (2003) afterwards.

Imagine, then, my boundless joy, having waded through months of what I honestly consider sub-standard material, when this hit my promo desk. It was being played within five minutes! And it hasn’t left my stereo since. I was a little bit skeptical when they signed to Nuclear Blast, but I didn’t need to be: it’s not changed what the band releases. I hope it never does, and that NB do good things for them.

WHILE HEAVEN WEPT began as a doom band. They sing songs of sorrow, death, despair, loss, and depression. They’ve since moved out of their doomy beginnings and are now considered more of an epic progressive/power metal band, especially in terms of their songwriting structures. Fear of Infinity features some really quite heavy and chunky riffs; some super catchy riffage, especially towards the end of the final song, Finality; vocalist Rain Irving’s voice is clear and strong; and the melodies, keys, and rhythm sections should be enough to make most aspiring musicians sit quietly in awe.

In an age when few metal acts truly know how to write a song, WHILE HEAVEN WEPT glow as sparkling exception.

But in terms of simple genre classification – and this may just be me – this epic prog/power genre classification doesn’t do anywhere near enough justice to the magnificent, very beautiful, doomy roots that a release like this has woven into its foundation. I like to still think of this release as an epic doom release. Its songwriting structures are more timeless and progressive, and upbeat, than doom has any right to be, but it is pure and melancholic. It is complex, emotional, and beautiful. It’s one of the few releases that I am happy to sit and listen to and do absolutely nothing else, for hours on end, while the album is on repeat. It makes me cry, even while I yearn to listen to more of it.

I also believe that WHILE HEAVEN WEPT ought not to be sent out to the press unless the label, its publicists, and the press itself has a clear six months to listen to the band’s releases, not the typical two days. This band is not one that you can get the full measure of in a short space of time. It takes time for it to sink through your skin and become part of you. It’s why I’m not writing anything but “WOW” right now. I can’t compare it to anything they’ve done in the past until I’ve given it the justice of time.

What I can say is that with every listen, you get something new out of Fear of Infinity. It is such a grower that I believe it will be like Vast Oceans Lachrymose was for me: something you fall in love with immediately, but for which your  depth of appreciation grows over six to 12 months of listening.

Also, the artwork. Just look at the art. Imagine that in music, and you’ve got a fair bit of this album’s measure.

Fans of WHILE HEAVEN WEPT will find this an essential addition to their collection; those who’ve not heard the band will dig it, but I’m not sure that it’s the best place to start with a band like this. Somebody try it and let me know?

WHILE HEAVEN WEPT’s Fear of Infinity is released on 22 April 2011, on Nuclear Blast Records.

This review appeared at AlternativeMatter in May 2011. Click here to see it.

Past posts you might dig:

1. RELEASE REVIEW: Samael – Above (Nuclear Blast/Riot)
2. Release Review: Sylosis – Conclusion of an Age (Nuclear Blast/Riot)
3. RELEASE REVIEW: Hackneyed – Burn After Reaping (Nuclear Blast/Riot)