'New' Band/Album/Song Reviews

Natalie

Natalie

Insect of Terror
Staff member
This is a thread modeled after the one Onhell used to have about CD reviews:
http://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/cd-reviews.15015/

It's a place for everyone to discuss 'new' bands or albums or songs they're currently discovering. By new I mean new to you, not necessarily new in the sense that the album just came out. So really, just like Onhell's old thread. Why aren't you simply bumping the old one?, I hear you ask. First, it would be a ridiculous bump of more than a year. Second, I don't want it to be exclusive to CD's (who buys CD's anymore as well, its a bit dated that way) because sometimes people simply don't have the time or feel like reviewing an entire album and this thread gives an opportunity to pick a few songs or just one. Third, to have a comprehensive thread that is easy to find and has everything in the title so we're not putting reviews in a thread not actually meant for reviews of new songs (i.e. The Random Song Review thread). Four, because I can. :p

I'll get it started with the first post below.
 
I posted a short statement about a song called Flying Whales by Gojira a few days ago in the Random Song Review thread. But since I enjoy the entire album, From Mars to Sirius (2005), I decided to review it. For clarity, I'm going to put the song list and then some comments or a clip under some of the songs.

1) Ocean Planet


There's a recurring guitar effect they use here that's reminiscent of the humpback whale song snippets they use on other tracks on this album. When I first heard it I was struck by how heavy it was and all the tempo/rhythm changes. It's like a much heavier Dream Theater with less clean vocals. I also feel the strong gets stronger as it goes on.

2) Backbone
Darker than the opener with some really great lyrics, I was impressed.

3) From the Sky
Here's where I noticed that there seem to be a few melodic idea's that run through all the songs, making them feel very connected. Combined with some of the recurring guitar effects, it makes for a very cohesive album. On the minus side, it makes it hard to distinguish between some of the songs individually.

4) Unicorn
A great little instrumental track using humpback whale song, acoustic guitar, and the sound of lapping waves. Slows the tempo down, gives the listener a breather.

5) Where Dragons Dwell

6) The Heaviest Matter of the Universe

7) Flying Whales


A fantastic epic song, my favorite off the album. The more I listen to it, the more I enjoy it. It's hard to explain in words though, so I recommend just listening to it.

8) In the Wilderness

9)World to Come
A bit happier-sounding than the rest of the songs, it's also one of the more distinguishable songs off the album that stands out and works well on its own merits.

10) From Mars
Another cool-down interlude-type song, just not instrumental this time.

11) To Sirius

12) Global Warming


It's probably my second favorite song after Flying Whales. Sounds really crisp and I really like the guitar riff that keeps cropping up. Might be a bit repetitive for some, but I like that kind of thing if it's melodic and good.

Overall I was very impressed with this album, the lyrics are also really great if you take the time to go look them up (I have a hard time understanding what they're saying). It 'flows' nicely, but the downside is that some songs get lost...for example The Heaviest Matter of the Universe. But the good thing is that the book ends, the opener and ending song, as well as the song in the middle, are really strong. As for style, its definitely progressive metal but with unclean vocals. I'm not a huge fan of screaming and such but it's at an acceptable level here, especially coupled with good melody. On some of the other albums I've since heard by this band (i.e. L'Enfant Sauvage) its not so great.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Onhell's thread is also for other forms, such as MP3's, YouTube etc.
Also, bumping a year old thread, what's the problem, if you really have something to say?

I understand your need for reviewing separate songs (not per se whole albums).
Natalie said:
so we're not putting reviews in a thread not actually meant for reviews of new songs (i.e. The Random Song Review thread).
Click to expand...
The Random Song Review thread was originally meant to review a song which you want to share, but lately, these reviews have become small or absent (less important). Some people still go for it, so it still fits to your needs.

Naturally we have other music topics, such as Progressive Rock, and I can imagine that these topics are still open for the same purpose you are going for. That's the consequence of having a subforum called Music Discussion; it gives room for different bands, different genres etc.
 
I am sorry if my post came across as purely seeing this topic as problematic. :/
If people want to review newly discovered works here, of course they can! :) I can do it myself as well, but if I'd be over the moon by e.g. some jazz trumpet player, or some proggy album, or the new Metallica (will that ever happen?) I might go to another topic, because I have the idea people are used to go, post and read out there.
 
I guess it is good to have a thread that encompasses everything, instead of having one for songs, one for albums and so on...

So I'll play. Here is a newly discovered band AND song that I heard for the first time yesterday. I haven't heard any of their albums yet but I am tempted to see if they have more to offer based on this song.

So the band is Band of Skulls (.com if you wanna check out their own homepage) and the song I heard, found by browsing around, one page leads to the next etc, was this one:

There is not really a lot of stuff to dig your teeth get into, review-wise or song-wise for that matter. The song is fairly straightforward but it is catchy, the pace is groovy, the song is full of attitude and it contains a dirty, dirty garage guitar solo..but overall it is just the kind of bluesy modern rock that is spit out by so many bands recently that I wonder if this band will have any impact on the scene with their future endeavors if they keep being so predictable. Apart from that, I still had my head nodding and it certainly is enjoyable. Listen for yourselves..

 
Edgar Froese - Macula Transfer (1975)

Thanks to a SixesAlltheway, I discovered the German group Tangerine Dream, an electronic music group with an insanely huge discography. It's quite a challenge to go through that, or even part of it. I'll certainly get back to them when I know some albums a bit better. One of the Tangerine Dream members is Edgar Froese. Next to the 100+ albums they did, he found it necessary to make a string of solo albums. From what I've heard, I like this one in particular. For this one album, the tracks were composed on plane flights while Tangerine Dream was touring; each track is named after the flight number of an airplane.

This music can certainly be seen as repetitive. As a matter of fact: it is repetitive! And how on earth is it possible that Forostar likes such repetitive music? Well, I like the vibe of it. It is atmospheric. Most music draws my attention in a demanding way, so much that I can't do much else at the same time (e.g. read a book, or study). This music serves as a relaxed background. I think this, and also Tangerine Dream's could serve very well as background music to role-playing games.

The music itself is 100% instrumental and besides all these electronic sounds and keyboards, Froese also plays his guitar, sometimes as the basic rhythm of a song, sometimes soloing. It's simple music, and by far not as impressive as Tangerine Dream's best works, but for some reason it moves me, or better: I find it relaxed. The simple impact of atmosphere, I guess.

Still, not every track is the same. E.g., the opening track, OS 452, is a "walking", earthly kind of song, which makes me feel I am travelling with someone, while the fourth, Quantas 611, sounds more like a soundtrack of a Sci Fi film, giving me rather an idea of larger dimensions (of space travel).
 
Good idea. I've discovered so much new music this year that I'm gonna have a field day with this thread when I'm a bit more awake :D
 
@Sixes: That Sweet Sour song is pretty sweet...although it sounds like something I've heard somewhere before...not sure if its just the bluesy style but there's something kind of generic about it. Still, I enjoyed it. And I liked the music video. Keep the new stuff coming! :ok:
 
Thanks Natalie! I think it is pretty good you know, but if you like other bands in this style you'll know from previous exposure that this band in particular is it not very original :)

Anyways! while I remember, let me add a remark to Gojira. I have NOT heard the album you have reviewed and I will do so when I get a chance, but for their album L'Enfant Sauvage I was very, very disappointed. I felt that they were just delivering hardcore breaks and breakdowns in every song...Some of the songs on that album didn't have anything else to offer than breakdowns.
 
In one of those old threads (was it the Random Song Review one?), I posted a piece of music that I declared my favourite discovery of recent times. It was the brilliant Und Pan spielt die Flöte by black metal band Nocte Obducta, from their album, Nektar 2: Seen, Flüsse, Tagebücher.


For some odd reason, this song always made me think of Spring, even if the lyrics really speak of something completely different. Maybe it's because the song mentions the Greek god Pan, and when I picture him and his fauns, I always visualise them in an environment of green hills and lush groves. Thanks to this song, Nektar 2 became one of my most frequently played albums, although I was never sure if I really enjoyed the album as a whole, or if I was simply crazy about this overwhelming song. At the very least, the three Desîhra's Tagebuch tracks at the beginning of the album (of which Pan is part 2) are pretty great.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, at some point I thought to myself, "if there's Nektar 2, there has to be Nektar 1." So I took a listen, and found it even better. It's a five track album, although the first one is only an intro; the other four are about the four seasons. My current favourite has to be the last track, Winter: Dezembermond.


I know this is probably not everyone's cup of tea. Some may find the vocals appalling, others may think it's dragged out, too long, not exciting, or whatever, but I don't care. This is pretty much exactly the sort of music I'm into right now.

I love the melodic drive and the atmosphere that this music has. It's the sort of music I sit back to, close my eyes and just let myself drift away. I especially love the last five minutes. And I know exactly that some here may have gripes with this passage in particular, because it is basically just repetition.
 
So I've been listening to a lot of Kreator recently, a band I basically had no idea existed until I heard the album Phantom Antichrist for whatever reason. So I went through and took a listen to their entire discography. Problem is, I'm not a big fan of thrash. But I'd been warned that the early albums by this band were maybe not ones that would be palatable to me. Nevertheless, I gave it a shot. Here's the breakdown, album by album (don't worry, not in any great detail at all).

Endless Pain: It wasn't as bad as I expected but not good by any means, it's just not the style of music I like. Too much mindless drumming, too fast, and not enough substance or melody.

Pleasure to Kill: Worse than the debut. Boring.

Terrible Certainty: Boring.

Extreme Aggression: Hated it. Just noise in my ears.

Coma of Souls: More of the same really, but one song did stick out a bit as positive and that was When the Sun Burns Red.

Renewal: Enjoyed this grunge/industrial/gothic style a lot more than the early thrash stuff. I know most hardcore Kreator fans would take issue with me here but do I look like I care? I liked Zero to None, and Depression Unrest.

Cause for Conflict: Overall impression was meh, kind of boring, but not as bad as the early stuff. Crisis of Disorder was ok.

Outcast: Now this was quite alright. I was reminded of the band Paradise Lost together with something else I can't quite place, maybe more grunge influences? I really enjoyed Phobia and Black Sunrise, 5 star material there.

Endorama: This might actually be my favorite album by this band, closely followed by Phantom Antichrist. It has a very different style from the latter album but its still good. Maybe its the presence of good melodies that I like, and less of a focus on ridiculous yelling vocals. If you enjoy Paradise Lost, you might really like both this album and Outcast. My favorites off of this one are: Golden Age, The Unseen Few, Everlasting Flame, Tyranny.


Violent Revolution: Pretty good, definitely back to the thrash style more but with more substance somehow, more melody, just...better. The title track is great. Others I liked were Servant in Heaven - King in Hell and Replicas of Life.

Enemy of God: Meh. Not as good as the other post-millenium albums.

Hordes of Chaos: Better than Enemy of God but somehow boring. I did enjoy the title track, Warcurse, and Radical Resistance.

Phantom Antichrist: I really liked this album, it's basically what got it all started. There are very obvious Maiden influences both in the tempo changes and the emphasis on melody. Night Prowler insists it also has Gothenburg metal influences which I suppose is true, I'm not very familiar with that scene. The lyrics from what I could understand were also a bit more profound than on previous releases. I took Death to the World to be a very modern song, lyric-wise, about humans overpopulating the earth and how we're self-destructing. The entire album was good but if I had to point out songs it would be the title track, and From Flood into Fire and Victory Will Come. [I just realized that the b-side of the vinyl version of the title track is a cover of The Number of the Beast, so yeah, definitely Maiden influences there].



So in summary about this band. Enjoyed their later material in general. I really enjoyed their foray into industrial and grunge which produced Outcast and Endorama. But I also really enjoy their return to their 'true' roots, with Violent Revolution and especially Phantom Antichrist. It's weird, but I definitely see a parallel between this band and Maiden with how their discography has progressed and how the nineties enabled them to produce what they did in the 2000's even if it wasn't commercially successful. Big difference is, I don't like their old stuff. :p
I definitely recommend them a listen, especially Phantom Antichrist and/or Endorama.
 
From what I've heard of Kreator, Phantom Antichrist is definitely their first good album. There's a few you liked that I haven't heard though so maybe I'll check those out.
 
Just heard the album Muchacho by Phosphorescent, on someone's recommendation. I think the artist is kind of a hipster doofus, and I haven't loved some of the other songs I've heard from this new album, but this song, "Ride On/Right On," is effing great. I can't get enough of it. Cool guitar bits throughout, incredibly catchy. Warning: not metal.

 
Mosh said:
From what I've heard of Kreator, Phantom Antichrist is definitely their first good album. There's a few you liked that I haven't heard though so maybe I'll check those out.
Click to expand...

First good album? Woah hold it right there brother. What about Extreme Aggression, Coma of Souls? Thrash classics.

 
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