AT WAR WITH SELF – TORN BETWEEN DIMENSIONS (
Instrumental Progressive Metal)
At War With Self is an all-instrumental progressive rock/metal project consisting of Glenn Snelwar (ex-
Gordian Knot), Mark Zonder (
Warlord, ex-
Fates Warning), and world-renowned studio musician Michael Manring. Normally not a fan of instrumental music, I found myself drawn to this album simply for the amazing cover art done by the always excellent Travis Smith. (I currently own eighty-four CDs with artwork designed by Smith.) Artwork aside,
Torn Between Dimensions is actually a very solid album.
Musically the album covers a lot of ground, making the title,
Torn Between Dimensions, paint a very accurate picture. The album sways from melodic passages filled with acoustics, piano, and Manring’s amazing fretless bass work—which is nothing short of brilliant!—to very heavy progressive metal à la
Zero Hour and
Canvas Solaris (another great instrumental prog-metal band). Standouts include
“The God Interface,” the atmospheric
“A Gap In The Stream Of Mind, Pt. 2,” “Run,” a shorter but heavier number, and the title track.
At War With Self is gearing up to release their sophomore release,
Acts Of God, and from the demos posted online it would appear that this album will feature a vocalist; whether or not this will work is unknown, but the demos sound very good. Either way,
Torn Between Dimensions is a great album not to be overlooked by fans of this style.
Rating:
70/100
Website:
http://www.glennsnelwar.com
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/atwarwithself
Downloads:
The God Interface,
Torn Between Dimensions (Clip),
A Gap In The Stream Of Mind – Part One (Clip),
Coming Home (Clip) and
Run (Clip)
GODSMACK – THE OTHER SIDE (
Acoustic Modern Rock)
Godsmack is a guilty pleasure of mine. They’re a modern rock band started by former
Meliah Rage/
Strip Mind—thrash bands!—drummer Sully Erna. They got lumped in with the whole nu-metal scene, but where never really part of it. The band released
All Wound Up in 1998 before being picked up by a Universal Records imprint label.
All Wound Up featured a hidden track called
“Whatever”—which, funnily enough, after re-releasing
All Wound Up as
Godsmack, would later become their breakthrough hit.
Sully Erna is a huge
Alice In Chains fan, and was rumored—but not proven—to once be in an
Alice In Chains tribute band; Erna, though he denies it, got the moniker “
Godsmack” from an
Alice In Chains song of a similar name:
“God Smack.” So is it any surprise that after a string of highly successful full-lengths
Godsmack released a stripped down acoustic album not unlike the
Alice In Chains classic acoustic EPs,
Sap and
Jar Of Flies?
Surprisingly—or not so, if you’re a fan—
The Other Side is just as good as those aforementioned EPs! The album starts with
“Running Blind,” a very catchy tune with light acoustic and percussion work.
“Re-Align” follows and makes clear the one difference between this EP and the
Alice In Chains EPs.
“Re-Align” is not a new tune, but an acoustic reworking of a song originally featured on their
Faceless album. Out of the seven tracks here, only three of them are exclusive to this EP. That doesn’t affect the quality of the EP, however.
“Touché,” and
“Voices” are the other two exclusive tracks; both are very good.
“Keep Away,” one of the band’s most famous songs, also gets the acoustic treatment here, as well as
“Spiral,” but they both are essentially the same as the original versions, only now acoustic. The best of the reworked tracks is
“Asleep,” an excellent, haunting rendition of
“Awake” from the album of the same name.
A lot of hate is directed at
Godsmack, but I don’t see the point. If you don’t like it, move on. Who cares? Personally, I find them to be perfect for those times when I just want to rock out to a good, catchy, solid modern rock album. I’ve always found the comparisons to
Alice In Chains to be vague at best, at least musically. There’s no question that
Alice In Chains were a big influence, but I’ve never found
Godsmack to sound like
Alice In Chains, nor have I ever thought Erna to sound like Layne Staley, like so many claim. To me, I’ve always found that to be an easy excuse to either vaguely write about the band or write them off.
Alice In Chains were always a much more complex band;
Godsmack are a simple modern rock band, and they do it very well.
The Other Side is just further proof.
Rating:
80/100
Website:
http://www.godsmack.com
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/godsmack
TRIXIE - SHELTER (
Hard Rock/80s Rock)
Trixie is a band ahead of their time, by roughly twenty years or so. By this I mean that they’re an 80s rock band who’ve surfaced twenty years
after their “time.” In 2003 Metal Mayhem Music released
Trixie’s debut self-titled album—an album that was recorded between 1989 and 1990! The recordings have suffered over time with a lot of tape “warble” and “hiss.” However, the album is great even with those sound issues! A lost gem of the 80s, indeed.
Trixie is the product of one Ronnie Borchert, a singer-songwriter-producer that decided to pursue his love of 80s rock just a little too late.
After
Trixie’s seemingly ill-fated debut, Borchert went on to form
Amsterdam in the 90s, and released four albums that did fairly well—at least well enough that I’d heard of them. In 2005 Borchert released
Trixie’s sophomore album,
Lift You Up. This is the album that I first heard, an album that blew me away. I’ve been a fan of 80s rock since my early teens and I’ve seen countless bands that were making music during that era try to reproduce that style in the 90s and 00s, and most fail miserably. Borchert is not trying to recreate that style with a modern rock mindset—which is what plagues most of those aforementioned bands. Borchert is still writing from an 80s perspective, and it kills!
Shelter is the third
Trixie album, and it’s awesome. If this came out in 1986 we’d consider
Trixie to be a classic 80’s rock band today. To put the vocals and music into perspective think of Vince Neil singing for mid-period
Def Leppard (
Pyromania,
Hysteria). That’s
Trixie.
The album begins with a double-dose of
“Hell Yeah” and
“Day And Night,” both unmistakable rock monsters!
“New Orleans Rain,” a blues-based rocker, not unlike early
Aerosmith, follows. The brilliant
“Lookin’ For Love” reminds me of
Tesla’s
“Changes” with
Def Leppard harmonizing in
“Tonight”.
“Just Walk Away” is a driving 80s
metal beast, fast, frenetic, fantastic. The album closes with yet another ode to
Def Leppard with a killer cover of their early classic
“Wasted”—easily the best
Lep cover I’ve ever heard—and they’re my all-time favorite band, so I’m very cynical when it comes to
Lep covers as most have sucked. Borchert does it justice!
If you’re a fan of the 80s rock greats, give
Trixie a try. You won’t be disappointed. Ronnie Borchert has quickly become one of my favorite rock songwriters over the past year or two. If you dig
Trixie check out
Amsterdam and
Miss Crazy (song links below), the latter of which Borchert goes by a pseudonym and at times sounds like
Cinderella’s Tom Keifer. He’s also got a solo album, simply titled
Ronnie—and sounding like
Trixie from what I’ve heard—coming out in early 2007.
Rating:
90/100
Website:
http://www.ronnieborchert.com
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/trixiemusic
Trixie Downloads:
Day And Night,
Hell Yeah!,
Escape (taken from
Lift You Up) and
I’ll Take You (taken from
Trixie)
Other Downloads:
Amsterdam – Not The Only One (taken from
B.U.R.S.T.),
Miss Crazy – So Long (taken from
Miss Crazy),
Miss Crazy – Hide Island (taken from
Miss Crazy) and
Ronnie Borchert – My Malena (taken from
Ronnie, due in 2007)
POWERMAN 5000 – DESTROY WHAT YOU ENJOY (
Alternative Rock/Punk)
Powerman 5000 is another guilty pleasure of mine. Being a local band to me I’ve been listening to them since their early albums when they played more of a funky, industrial space rock style.
Tonight The Stars Revolt! saw the band with a beefier, more streamlined sound—a sound that gave the band their greatest success to date—but not too far removed from their early albums. A follow-up by the name of
Anyone For Doomsday? was recorded but subsequently shelved right before its scheduled release. Promos were released and a single,
“Bombshell,” was sent to radio. Those that heard the
“Bombshell” or
Anyone For Doomsday? were hard-pressed to find a logical reason why it was shelved. It was the perfect follow-up to a highly successful album! With the announcement that the band hadn’t broken up, that they hadn’t been dropped from their label, and were recording an entirely new album without two longtime members, rumors and speculation was rampant.
Two years later the band returned with
Transform, and upon reading that title and hearing the first single,
“Free,” it was pretty apparent what the band, or most likely, the label, had in mind: a transformation. That’s as far as I got with the band back then. That single did nothing for me. It was more a simple punk style, rather than their earlier industrial rock sound. I was uninterested. Now, through
Lala.com, I’ve picked up both
Transform and this, their latest,
Destroy What You Enjoy.
Both albums aren’t as bad as I expected, but neither are that great. Surprisingly, though different,
Transform doesn’t completely abandon the old
Powerman 5000 sound like I expected; and on songs like
“Theme To A Fake Revolution” and
“That’s Entertainment” there’s a bit of good nostalgia and disappointment at the same time. Both albums are definitely much simpler and straightforward with more of a punk rock influence, but sadly, those new elements that surfaced on
Transform have all but taken over on
Destroy What You Enjoy. The lead off single,
“Wild World,” is a perfect example: a simple, mediocre, juvenile pop-punk song, something you’d expect from
Blink-182, not from a band that was once the industrial cousin to
White Zombie. The formula is repeated throughout
Destroy What You Enjoy—an album title that, like
Transform, seems to carry a more accurate message than most albums titles. It’s worth the $1.75 I paid for it, but not much more than that.
Rating:
55/100
Website:
http://www.powerman5000.com
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/powerman5000
Downloads:
City Of The Dead (MySpace download) and
Wild World (Video)
MAHAVATAR – FROM THE SUN, THE PAIN, THE WIND, THE SOIL (
Modern Alternative Prog-Metal)
One word: Wow!
That’s how I would describe
From The Sun, The Pain, The Wind, The Soil, an album I picked up on a whim.
Mahavatar is a New York based band that plays a progressive form of modern, alternative metal. The band incorporates crushing metal that ranges from down-tuned chuggers to old school thrash-influenced anthems, all the while incorporating quasi-death/hardcore and clean vocals along with quiet acoustic passages, Middle Eastern-influenced interludes, and killer solos!
One of the biggest surprises here is with the vocals. When I first heard the album I noted a male vocalist doing the heavy vocals, while a female vocalist did the clean vocals—vocals that sounded like a stronger, equally haunting version of Marianne Faithful. It wasn’t until flipping through the booklet that I found myself questioning who the vocalists really were. Karla Williams—which I assume is female, but I can’t tell from the pics I’ve seen—is the guitarist, but it doesn’t list “vocals” next to her/his name. That distinction rested solely with Lizza Hasan. A quick search on the internet quickly had me scooping up my jaw—which had fallen onto my nuts as I wrote this review naked. Lizza Hasan is female and the
only vocalist in
Mahavatar! This isn’t a case of a female vocalist doing heavy vocals but still sounding like a female doing heavy vocals, like Morgan Lander (
Kittie), Karyn Crisis (
Crisis) or Angela Gossow (
Arch Enemy). Hasan truly has a hellacious, naturally guttural sound that doesn’t sound like its emanating from a female throat.
From The Sun, The Pain, The Wind, The Soil is the bands second full-length following
Go With The No! and three demos. The first track,
“Cult,” is one hell of a tune! The song begins with a piercing metal riff leading into a dark, twisted verse—
“this is the message of my cult!”—and chorus. The mid-section features some clean singing and a Middle Eastern-tinged solo that leads into a mellow, introspective outro.
“By The Numbers” and
“Raw” are both crushing anthems, the latter being a dynamic piece that incorporates acoustic and cleanly-sung interludes.
“Open Your Mind” is a catchy, mid-paced sing-along, while
“The Prophecy” is a slow, doom-laden monster with a breakneck thrash chorus!
“Deep Cobble” and
“The Time Has Come” are both dark, haunting masterpieces: slowly rising and falling, grim throughout.
Mahavatar is a band that caught me by surprise; first with their music, then with the dynamic vocals of Lizza Hasan; even the intelligent, poetic and poignant lyrics caught me.
Mahavatar is one killer band! Those not averse to modern metal, and want something quite unique within the genre, would do well to check out
From The Sun, The Pain, The Wind, The Soil.
Rating:
90/100
Website:
http://www.mahavatar.net
MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/mahavatar
Downloads:
Cult,
Psychos,
Cult (Video) and
Deep Cobble (Video)
