Let's try something new here. I'm getting swamped with promos I cannot attend to 'em I want to. This is nothing new. Most of my contributors are on some sort of holiday, M.I.A. or enjoying life at the Eistnaflug festival. This is just normal. Much love to all. Instead of grinding to a complete halt, I'm gonna do some really quick first impressions to get the word out.
WHERE GIANTS ONCE STOOD is a band I never heard before but heard million times over all over the fucking place. I guess the glossy magazines and Facebook metallers call this metalcore. You know the deal, cleaned up, compressed desentitized recordings of super proficient, technical and computer like tightness. There's the clean vocals, breakdowns and melodies blanketing everything. People love this sound though. I'm just done with it. No wait, there are some interesting keyboard sounds thrown in here and there. That was kinda neat. But, not for me. Please. Made to be forgotten. No soul. Bye.
My roots are carefully tied with thrash metal. After being raised on classic rock and first generation metal and NWOBHM, thrash metal had me tear away from by dad's parameters for what was good and what wasn't. It was my subtle rebellion and level-up from what was essentially his. HATRIOT's Heroes Of Origin is raging, high-energy thrash demolition, like Exodus on steroids. Gary Holt would be proud. The Exodus comparison doesn't end there, because the singer sounds just like Steve "Zetro" Souza. Crazy. I suspect Mr. Holt would prefer a bit less formulaic effort. Me too. Still, this is an ass kicker and if you want current thrash that sounds like the first tier of old, Heroes Of Origin should be on your check-list.
THE MEADS OF ASPHODEL. The promo sheet says: "Sonderkommando is an extremely dark recording that was in-part inspired by vocalist Metatron's 2011 trip to Auswitch. He shares, “It is a cold, eerie place where death laughs and the world spins blindly past. I couldn't even begin to imagine the suffering of the children here. I forgot about Jews and Nazi's for a moment and just looked upon pure hatred, and human beings slaughtered for sadistic self gratification under the veil of a flawed ideology."
Ah. Something thoughtful gets sent to me. Thank the heavens. I'm only a couple of songs deep into this promo but I'm utterly compelled by the eerie and rustic sounding music. It floats under and above, rooted in music of old, be it folk or progressive music of some sorts, giving it a very authentic feel where one feels like he/she is listening to something from the past but the unnerving cover art, the lyrics and the source for this album inspiration renders it quite chilling. Noteworthy. I'm keeping this one.
If a novel inspired by real events -- such as the ones mentioned above --, and it had a soundtrack... It'd sound something like this.
And for something utterly in no god damn sync with anything presented above. This is my introduction to ELLIPHANT. Enormous crossover potential, hey it's pop music, that's what it is supposed to do. Dancehall yet cleverly global. Smells like a hit to me. Made me feel light and positive and a bit yearning for something dormant for too long. Diggin' it.
-Birkir Fjalar
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