Metal Reviews

The new JOP is almost done it seems, cant wait.

Got this from http://www.jonoliva.net/

Maniacal Renderings - Chapter 2 Begins!
Thursday, November 10 2005

Good morning metalheads!

Time for an update as we push the writing envelope and prepare for phase 2 of Jon Oliva's Pain.

As you can tell by the title of this thread, the album title has been decided. Thanks to Sir Rothney of Sea-men-hole for coming up with this clever, yet appropriate title for the new record.

Maniacal Renderings- Chapter 2

The title is very fitting considering the direction of the new music and the lyrics Jon is putting down on paper. This is going to be one twisted ride with some very dark lyrics and some very heavy friggin music!...YES!
As some may already know, pre-production is being done at Pig-Pen Studios (which is basically the studio in my house). I had my garage professionally converted into a fully funtional studio, and while the six of us are a little short on elbow room, you would be amazed at what we get accomplished. Oliva actually sits in the control room area with a good monitor mix and great isolation from the band. Did I mention that Oliva uses my cloth's dryer for a table....That's right, he sits right in front of my washer and dryer!...How funny is that? (I will post pictures in the coming days...We know you won't believe it until you see it for yourselves).

We had an interesting band meeting last night as we were discussing the upcoming future for JOP...and the future is very good! Following the meeting, we began work on another great Oliva guitar riff. Jerry had recorded some idea's a few weeks ago and we found a perfect match to compliment this new diddy!...An hour later and this song was in the bag. It is sort of like a Moutain King meets Zakk Wylde meets Black Sabbath vibe. Heavy and in your face. A working title for this song is "Time To Die"! We laid down all the necessary tracks including keyboard drum's performed by cement-fingers himself...(Oliva). Jerry has been bringing some amazing sh*t to the table. The teamwork displayed by everyone in the band has been something special. Oliva could easily write every song on his own, so it is nice to see him rubbing his hands together, and with a snickering laugh says "Wait til they hear this"!

We have spent much of the time writing songs at my kitchen table which is adjacent to the studio. It's a bare-bones scenario. Nothing fancy and no expensive recording studio at this point. But the work is getting done and the environment is upbeat and increasingly positive. Super G has been overseeing pre-production and is giving me a free engineering lesson on the Cakewalk recording program we are using here at Pig-Pen Studio's.
Thanks G!

Working titles so far are:

Maniacal Renderings
Time To Die
I Don't Want
Blood On Your Hands
Pyramid on Mars (Instrumental)
Steaming Pig (Not really,...but that's all we have for now...hehe)
The Answer (from the original JOP demo's)
Reality's Fool ( another demo from chapter 1)
and a whole bunch more that I just cannot remember right now...Sorry!

The goal is to get 16 songs ready for recording. We need some bonus tracks for different countries...plus we like to hear the sounds of our own instruments (and our voices) so we will record as much as possible.

Nice. I wonder how long this will take to get released?

I assume it will be anywheres between Jan 2006 - March 2006 since they seem this far along already. But thats just a guess. I was really hoping for a 2005 release though, oh well, 2006 should be a decent year: This, new BG, Sinergy, heard there was supposed to be some new Virgin Steele as well.. Oh yeah and a new Savatage "all-stars" album/DVD release.. Mmmm, 2006 smells yummy.

Hope it's stronger than the first. Some awesome song's on teh first, but some real misses.

I would totally disagree as I found the last album was the best release of 2004, but I wont argue personal tastes and opinions.

Yeah, I love the album. I think a lot of people expected that Savatage sound, which they did get with that album, but it's got a lot of different elements, too, which may turn people off. I think if the album had a completely different sound from Savatage then it would have been accepted a bit more.

And when does this new Sinergy album come out? Their site seems to have been hijacked by someone!

I thought of making a seperate thread for this, but whatever, Here is some info on the new Sinergy.

Sinergy, the acclaimed Finnish metal band featuring singer Kimberly Goss and Children Of Bodom members Alexi Laiho (guitar) and Roope Latvala (guitar), have spent the past few months quietly recording their fourth full-length album, tentatively due in late 2005.

As Goss announced on the internet:

"Sinergy does indeed still exist, though the absence of our website and having only played two gigs in the past six months may lead people to believe otherwise. Our fourth album will be called "Sins of the Past". We started recording drums and bass in June of last year at Finnvox Studios, and have continued recording the rest of it at Beyond Abilities Studios (the studio of Janne Wirman from Children Of Bodom). However, we've had to record the album in separate sections due to Children Of Bodom's busy touring schedule last year. We've sometimes had to take several months off in between recording.

"Alexi just got his cast off cast week [after suffering a broken arm in a fall in December], but still needs to wear a brace for another few weeks. He's able to play guitar now, but we're gonna wait until he's 100 percent recovered before he finishes his leads on the album. In the meantime, myself and Roope have been busy recording our parts. The album will then be mixed and mastered at Finnvox then the recording is finished.

"All I can say is that we are hopeful that the album will be released sometime this year. We'll have a new website up once the artwork for the new album is finished."


Despite what it says, I read somewheres that it has been delayed from late 2005 until early 2006.

Hmm.. it's a pity that The Mountain King doesn't push good old Savatage with same enthusiasm & energy. Don't get me wrong, I found some keepers from "Tage Mahal" also, it's nice that man with such talent does something (there is worse examples..) but I'm beginning to question whether they will ever make a successor to quite mediocre "Poets and Madmen".

I found nothing mediocre about Poets And Madmen (except a few choruses on songs like There In The Silence) Anyways, apparently next year for the 25th anniversary of Savatage there is going to be a new album featuring all past members of the band plus a concert DVD with tons and tons of extras. I think the rumored album name right now is Stories.. or something.

That one I haven't even heard of, cool! Strange that Damond Jiniya (not sure about the name anymore..) hasn't got the change to get his voice (+ complimented voice range) on Sava-album. Their latest isn't that bad, Jon's return to the mikestand was great but compared to others that one just can't compete in my opinion.

I have not heard Damond's voice yet since I have never seen Savatage live, but I really wish Jon would just stay as the main vocalist, they could play any style they wanted, all I want is for him to sing. But if he doesnt, I at least have Jon Oliva's Pain to look forward to. And back to Poets And Madmen, I think it was better than all Sava albums from 1993 up till it was released (Finally) in 2001. But I do not think it was better than any early Savatage, except maybe both Power of The Night and Fight For The Rock.

In the latest interview with Jon, he said Damond was only singing for that tour and is not going to sing on the new album.

Also, Stories was the title for the album they were supposed to be working on - but it kept getting pushed back and now I'm not sure if that's what they're going to call the anniversary album

Do you have a link to said interview by chance? And if thats true about Damond, I say good, I likes my Jon fat and on vocals. And I hope they actually dont call the album Stories anyways as I think that is a stupid name.

I found these vids posted on the JOP forum, so I thought I'd share them with anyone interested!

Hounds:
http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=FwjDS-QegCk

Thorazine Shuffle:
http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=zMv_F-6iylU

No Escape:
http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=yfM0uXKPYxk

Here's all 3 on the YouTube site: http://www.youtube.com/results?search=j ... rch_videos


I thought the new album would have been out by now. But according to some band members posting on the forums there will be a 5 song EP in June (3 new songs, 2 live sava-tunes) and then the full album around September... Thats too long! Either way, Im expecting this to be my numba 1 this year like the first was in 2004, but it has some stiff competition this year!

Wordness!

Decided to reuse this old thread meant for Maniacal Renderings.

Anyways, just read on Jon Oliva's site about another JOP album coming up and pretty soon to.

Source - http://www.jonoliva.net/index2.html (its the first news item)



There is alot more written on the site if you're interested, just go to the link above.

http://www.myspace.com/jonoliva

Samples from the new album Global Warning.. Before I Hang was really the only song that jumped out at me with awesomeness. Not to say the other songs sound bad, quite the opposite really. Just that they sound.. typical? I still can't wait for this. Their last 2 albums were my number 1 albums each year they came out.

Heard those samples a while back. Awesome stuff! Circle II Circle and Chris Caffery are putting new albums out this year, too! Fucking killer! And a new non-Christmas Trans-Siberian Orchestra is supposed to finally out (and maybe a new Christmas album)!

Can't ask for a better year from the Sava crew. Sure, a new Savatage album would be cool, but Jon says the JOB stuff is pretty much Savatage.

Also, Zak and his old band, Wicked Witch, are re-recording their old demos for release this year. It's gonna be awesome!

http://www.myspace.com/wickedwitchtheband

Yeah it sounds like a big year. The new TSO should be awesome. Their only other non-christmas album is my favorite of theirs. Chris Caffery's first album was pretty good but I didn't like his last one to much so I hope he can pull off something good. He is very talented and with Oliva in the mix he is amazing. He needs some work done on his singing and his songwriting when on his own though.

EDIT: Wickedwitch sounds pretty awesome. Will look forward to this. Its amazing how much good music has been made by Savatage and all the people who were apart of Savatage.

Someone brought this up on another forum. Do you think Paul O'Neill owns the rights to the Savatage name? Some other people think he does, which would explain why Savatage has basically been put on indefinite hold.