Vallenfyre - A Fragile King (2011)

Members of Paradise Lost, At the Gates and My Dying Bride come together on this release - a personal one for Greg Mackintosh as it's inspiration stems from his father's diagnosis and death from prostate cancer.  In other words, we have a super-group coming together to release an album of mourning.

While such a bleak and personal subject matter isn't really out of keeping for members who have been pioneers of the doom scene, we have little here that can be described in any way as 'doom'.  What this obviously, very intimate recording assaults us with is largely an old school, crusty death metal which harks back to the 'Swedish' sound - namely Wolverine Blues-era Entombed.

There are elements of a more doomy and at times gothic sound, yet these are rather minimal compared with what you might expect.  The track Majesty Dethroned has a mid-section that could be on almost any early doom release - save for more modern production while some of the more less prevalent leads throughout the disc increase the doomy elements.  However, this is not a doom release; it is undoubtedly and (thankfully) unashamedly death metal.

Perhaps less thankfully though is the fact that it does absolutely nothing original.  It's something that you'll listen to a few times, love but then only ever put on as background music while you're having a beer.  For the most part you'll be fine, but with tracks like The Grim Irony don't expect it all to be light-hearted.  

The fact remains that what it does it does very well.  I just wish there was something a little more there.  Seriously, if I didn't know any better and someone threw this on, I'd be sat there desperately trying to figure out which Entombed album I was listening to and why it didn't sound that familiar.  The overall sound is bang on and that's before we get to Mackintosh's vocals which are a dead ringer for a certain Mr Petrov.

I must admit though, I was expecting to hate this album:  When I fist put it on, I listened to it through a pair of monitors and was disgusted by the guitar tone.  It was just fucking horrible.  Listening to it on a shitter stereo or a pair of headphones and it's a different story.  Yes the guitars are buzzy and have that old-school middle-yet-buzzy thing going on, but it fits the music perfectly.  And when it rips in to the higher octane leads . . . yes, this album fucking rocks.

The disappointment is that it's pretty much going to be instantly forgettable.  It fails to have it's own personality, instead borrowing that of a band who've been among my favourites for years.  Which, considering the subject matter, is pretty fucking odd.

Apparently this was never intended for general release.  And I can pretty much see why.  It's a shame that when the decision was made to actually put it out, a little more thought and a few flares or originality weren't injected into A Fragile King.  Still; it's a solid album and if like me you like that sort've thing, you won't hate this.  But I doubt you'll particularly remember it either.

Oblivionized - Abhorrent Evolution Ep

2011, Amputated Vein Records / Malignant Manifestation Productions

Misanthropy:  The word may conjure images of a teen-angst ridden whiny goth sat in his bedroom, cutting himself (but not too deeply) whilst spinning the latest release by a certain Mr Manson, and fantasising about necrophilia due to the complications afforded by actual living, breathing females who he’s unable to actually engage with, owing to his completely self-absorbed existence as he masturbates furiously with the lubrication afforded by his own tears.

Yes, the word may conjure such an image.  Thankfully, these self-proclaimed purveyors of misanthropic technical death-grind are far removed from such a puerile definition of the term.  The assailing barrage of deftly composed noise is tight, sophisticated and ultimately very fucking depressing.  Like a particularly dejected lemming who’s turned to speed to alleviate the despondency of its own existence, each of the four tracks on offer here brims over with anger and misery in equal measure.  Enough indeed to turn one of even the most positive disposition into a bitter, twisted wretch.

As well as the death & grind elements, there is a clear doomy black metal influence on display here; particularly on Abhorrent Evolution & A Modern Prometheus, which simultaneously manages to further the general feel of negativity while never really bringing the overall tempo down too much. Although, that may be largely down to Rushy’s drum work which marries groove and passion with a non-stop machine-gun kick which eviscerates everything it comes into contact with.

Yet it’s the dominance of drums and bass in the mix which makes for a difficult listen.  With particular reference to the first three tracks, drums and bass mask the majority of the outstanding guitar work meaning that in order to get the most out of what’s on offer, the listener has to strain to make out the nuances in riffs – and when the riffs are this fast and this complex, is not an easy thing to do.  Unfortunately, this isn’t just a problem with the rhythm guitars:  On the opener Born into Decadence as well as its successor – Abhorrent Evolution – the tones of a melodic solo, which should soar above the rest of the composition, are reduced to vague strains; lessening the impact so that it doesn’t quite achieve the effect of an emotional sucker-punch which it should. 

Nevertheless; fight your way past the rhythm section and what you is some absurdly technical riffing, crafted together to form incredibly well-composed tracks which, while sharing an overall theme – retain an individuality.  Thankfully, the problems with production are cleared-up somewhat for the last track, meaning the release ends strongly – as it deserves to.

The tortured, high-pitched vocals of Zac Broughton permeate the whole, increasing the air torment – although I can’t help thinking that they would have more effect if the guttural backing vocals were given a little more prevalence overall.

Despite all petty criticisms, this is a well-polished, professional release that revels in the dark atmosphere that pours from the speakers like a blackened sludge from the Devil’s bowels after a particularly intense night on the Guinness, as well as being a true lesson in technical musicianship while never sacrificing composition on the altars of self-indulgence.  Many bands could learn quite a few lessons from these fine fellows!

Oblivionized on myspace

Oblivionized on Facebook

Malignant Manifestation on Youtube

Terrordrome - Vehement Convulsion and Mechanical God Creation - Cell XIII

  Due to moving from one side of the penines to the other and desperately trying to find a job that pays the bills, I have somewhat neglected my sweary rantings and ravings with regards to the general decline of musical standards, for quite some time.

This situation will be remedied - I promise.


 However, recently uploaded to Death Metal Baboon were two of my less sweary analyzations of musical excretions.  The first is my review of Terrordrome's Vehement Convulsion and can be found here while the second was a review of Mechanical God Creation's Cell XIII which is here.

One of these was a an absolute pleasure to review while the other left me in a lethargical depression.  Read them and find out which was which.

Rage Against the Numerically-applied Value System or When the Scorecards Fail

The complete lack of any kind of scores out of five, ten, percentages, chainsaws have never and have never appeared on this admittedly short-lived (so far) blog is simple: They are fucking meaningless.

Completely and utterly meaningless.

So why, by the deifically raped mother of the carpenter, are they so bastardly prevalent?! I can’t answer this. What I can do is illustrate my point.

My first argument’s easy and is essentially based on the subjectivity of reviews: Each person is going to have their own opinion on what’s good, bad or that to which they’re indifferent. It doesn’t matter whether the item being reviewed is music, literature or a motherfucking sandwich – people’s opinions are subjective.

So what does that mean for the score arbitrarily tacked on to the end of a piece? It removes any pretension to worthiness that this form of reviewing may have accumulated over the years.

But why even bother with reviews in the first place? If they are just an individual’s take on something – which is all they are – then what makes them important? What makes them useful?

A good review should not only let the reader know – in as much as is possible without hearing it for themselves – what an album sounds like. Irrelevant of the writer’s own, personal opinion, the reader should at least be left with a vague idea of what to expect. Obviously, the review is going to be biased in some way or another, skewed in favour of or against the disc in question. This is a given. But that doesn’t automatically preclude the author from communicated – in however biased a fashion – a certain degree of information with which the reader can make their own decision on whether to purchase or save their time and money.

This cannot be achieved with the asinine, arbitrary score cards which have been so accepted when it comes to the reviewing of most products.

This is no newly developed antipathy towards scores/ratings in reviews. It’s something that I’ve known for a while and something that was festering, growing and mutating within me a long time before I became aware of it; but every so often it’s brought into focus with such force and alacrity that I can’t help but comment.

As you know from previous posts, I have recently been contributing to http://www.deathmetalbaboon.com/. Unlike myself, The Baboon is fond of such ratings. Fairy snuff, methought, I’ll bash out the scores for those lethargic lightweights who don’t even have the dedication to read a few hundred words but skip to the end because that’s what they’ve got used to over the interminable years of reading mainstream *cough* metal *cough* media; the majority of which bears no resemblance whatsoever to intelligent journalism having more in common with cock-sucking scrotal limpets backstage at a cock-rock gig. In both mentality and intelligence.

Ha!

So anyways, there’s me, when I’ve had the chance to squeeze out a bit of the old verbose vilification, pondering over numbers and throwing something that looked about right across the room, hoping it’d stick and not slowly slide off in a limp and somewhat pathetic manner.

And it was good.

Until I wrote my reviews of Decrepit Birth and Blastanus. One of these was a massive, crushing, brutalandnotinthegoodway disappointment which clove my soul in twain and left me writhing on the floor burbling fluids for many an hour . . . although that might’ve been the yoghurt I found in the back of the fridge, who knows? The other, well . . . I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was amazing but, it was pretty good; a nice surprise from a band that could potentially be pretty fucking cool.

And this is fine. This is being a music fan. Sometimes things don’t work out as planned but the crushing disappointment is always followed by the new discovery.

The problem’s crusty cranium emerges when the numerical value system comes into play:

Decrepit Birth’s Polarity was a massive disappointment to me and failed to meet expectations so magnificently that there was no redemption for it. The only thing that elevated it above 0-3 level was the musical ability. This necessitated recognition! I couldn’t skip over this! And it was only shite compared to my expectations based on their previous release. So it had to hit the midrange. 6/10

Blastanus’ self-released Odd on the other had, shows a lot of fucking promise and a fair whack of originality. This was an exercise in point deduction: starting with a full sheet and removing them for what I felt were detracting elements on the disc. Again, due to production issues as well as a few other elements that don’t meet my personal catalogue of the praiseworthy, 6/10.

How the fuck is this a fucking, bastarding, useful fucking system for reviewing anything?!

It just doesn’t fucking make sense.

In the future I might actually just revert to an automatic number generator. That way reviews that are happily basking in the jism of awesomeness of some new release will be marked 0-1 or vice versa.


Then we’ll know who actually fucking reads this shit! *Cue completely over-the-top maniacal laughter and we’re done*

Rest assured; the Pastor keeps to the true way: The expulsion of dogma is necessary. We should not attempt to emulate our forebears, but safe in the knowledge and surety of our righteousness, forge our own path.

(5⅜ miscellaneous brutal things)