Metal Reviews

Way to welcome the n00b. He's usually nice, SD - just don't call anyone nu metal lightly.

Way to welcome the n00b. He's usually nice, SD - just don't call anyone nu metal lightly.

The Gathering- Home

There's something worrying about the title of this album. Originally a Paradise Lost influenced Doom-Death group, the Gathering have since then spun further and further from that initial original orbit through ambient, electronic and pop territory, to become utterly unrecogniseable as the same band that produced unadorned metal records like 1992's Always. They have largely avoided the purist criticism you might expect of such a career path because their sincerity and creativity has so far been able to shine in any context. But, calling the new album Home suggests that their styllistic wandering is over for now, and that they've found their niche playing understated indie-influenced electro-pop. For someone that regards 1995's Mandylion and 1997's Nighttime Birds as the two finest hours of female-fronted Gothic Doom it's a slightly distressing thought, but it's still the Gathering, and as such there is always the belief that wherever they go there will be convincing results.

Unfortunately there's a big problem, because this time they've slipped up as songwriters. The opening track- Shortest Day- is also the most assertive song on the album, built over a pounding mid tempo backbeat, sustained synthesizers and subtle ambient noise. It's the kind of thing you'd expect a voice like Anneke's to thrive over and lift to a higher level, but it falls flat because the melody and chord progression is repetitive and fairly uninteresting. There are moments where the song hooks you in, but overall it sounds depressingly average- like something you'd expect to hear from a bland quasi-ambient borderline chart act like Goldfrapp.

Alone is another good example of Home's worst features. It hints at being adventurous, with a strange, tinny percussion sound and crackling feedback buried just beneath the surface. In terms of experimentalism however it's a big step back from the last studio album- Souvenirs, where every track sounds like a curveball, and once again it's let down by the simple and unavoidable fact that there is not a strong enough hook, and none of their familiar melodic craft. Just as you're thinking about how strangely passionless it all sounds, there's a reminder of what the band is capable of. At the end of the third minute, after a false ending and floating string interlude, we get a new melody over the same, original instrumental backdrop with added strings, and suddenly the song comes alive for the first time. Proof that the main cause of dissatisfaction with the album is the lack of strong melodies, which are clearly essential to a band playing this type of music. Extra disappointing when you consider that the voice these tunes are written for is one of the finest in the wider sphere of popular music today.

Given all this, it's unsurprising that when they do hit on a distinctive melody line Home really takes off. The title track, an ethereal wash of keyboard ambiance underpinned by a graceful lead melody, is perhaps the most melancholy the band has ever sounded, with a chorus that is unforgettable. In Between is a masterstroke of understated melodicism. Unfortunately it's hard to find anything really impressive outside of these two high points.

It's arguably worth getting the album just for those two tracks, but I'd say this is probably the weakest of the albums the Gathering have released post Anneke joining over a decade ago. The good news is that the band haven't lost it. There's enough flair here to suggest future efforts will scale previous heights, and it certainly has some charm. Sadly though Home doesn't live up to expectations.

understated indie-influenced electro-pop

Alone is another good example of Home's worst features. It hints at being adventurous, with a strange, tinny percussion sound and crackling feedback buried just beneath the surface.

In terms of experimentalism however it's a big step back from the last studio album- Souvenirs, where every track sounds like a curveball, and once again it's let down by the simple and unavoidable fact that there is not a strong enough hook, and none of their familiar melodic craft.

Man, lots to disagree with here!

Tinny?? Are you listening through an internal PC speaker? That is a deep, pounding beat, dude! Tinny is the complete opposite of what it is!

I disagree with there being no strong hooks, but wouldn't the simple fact that this album is very different from Souvenirs justify the term "experimental?" It is indeed a stripped down album, but did you expect that? Of course not! And personally I think Souvenirs is a pretty straightforward album compared to this one.

That is all.

I thought I would post my review of the last Gathering album.

Yes way, it's definitely understated, and I would say electro-pop just because there's pop and a lot of electronics. Unless that term means somehing different to me than you.

On "Alone"? By "hints at" I really mean the sound they're using right at the start in the percussion, which is certainly tinny to my ears. I shall make that clearer for the final version. But that sound does resurface throughout, plus there is that beat that's on 1 and 3 of each measure during the verses, which almost sounds like someone hitting a metal bin to me.

Well, as I said there's a few strong hooks but not enough. I was expecting the band to stay within the general area of the last two albums, but this time with even less metal influence. That's pretty much what has happened. But I was also expecting them to avoid sounding this bland. I think that's pretty much the best word to describe it.

The Gathering have never followed any rules, in fact they seem to make them up as they move steadily along this path they’re constantly reshaping. Home is just another turn in the road for this band. Does it work every time? Damn near. The problem with this album is that after the first two tracks it’s a fairly mellow affair. “Alone” and “Solace” add a nice dynamic to break up the monotony, but overall even at the album’s heaviest point it’s still a low-key collection of songs. The songs are great, but the album is the sort of album that will be enjoyed thoroughly in the right mood. Unfortunately that mood will likely not be as often as you’d hope. Certain tracks will hit home every time, but others will find themselves being skipped over far more often. Again, the songs are very good, something we’ve come to expect from this band, but I don’t feel like they’re the kind of songs that will standout each and every time you play the album. Home is a very solid release in a steady stream of other good to great to amazing releases, but it’s definitely not their best album to date.

If this is home, I can live with that, because it’s a nice place to be for a short period of time, and The Gathering will likely move again soon so I’m not too worried about the scenery getting old. Things are good for now.

Cheers, it's good for me to have to justify what I write.

Thinking about it more, and listening to Souvenirs.

This album is full of moments where it really sounds like they are trying to do something new. The're experimenting with instrumentation, experimenting with textures. On Home it just sounds like they're being very conservative and sticking with what they know.

Maudlin of the Well - Bath/Leaving Your Body Map

So... I was at work on the last 10 minutes of my shift thinking that I should write a review of something I'm not obsessed with, but not something I hate since those reviews tend to be boring or just plain wrong. So my mind fell to the Maudlin of the Well albums that were recorded together but released seperately, Bath and Leaving Your Body Map. Writing about them would be interesting because while I respected what they were doing, they never really clicked with me in a way that made me want to listen to the two albums very frequently. So leaving work I selected Bath on my mp3 player and set off on my walk home, this is what I could think of for a review afterwards:

Wow. Maudlin of the Well are probably the most foward thinking and unique band to ever be classified under the "metal" genre. The best comparison to their sound is a band like Opeth, because both bands have a great dynamic between heavy sections and soft sections. It's kind of a crappy comparison though because Maudlin of the Well make Opeth's form of progressive death metal sound like a herd of primates banging pots and pans together. Seriously. And I actually like Opeth.

Strapping Young Lad - The New Black

After finally releasing the masterpiece of insanity that was Alien, the album that Strapping Young Lad fans had to wait 8 long years after the release of City to get (SYL being the weak album that it was), Devin Townsend is back again in Strapping Young Lad form with The New Black. Alien saw Devin Townsend incoporating some of the melody and ambition that before was only found in his solo projects, but also injected them with enough anger and insanity to make it totally clear that it was a Strapping Young Lad album. The New Black delves further down this path - more melody, more grooves, quite a bit more clean vocals, and, for the first time on a SYL album, guitar solos on more than one song. With these elements, The New Black was 100% ready to be a juicy, melodic-yet-heavy, beautiful-yet-pummeling masterpiece...

...but its not.

While Devin spent six months fine tuning all of the songs on Alien, The New Black came out less than six months after Devin's last album, Synchestra. Not only that but he went on tour with The Devin Townsend band as well during that time, meaning that the amount of time spent on the songs of The New Black is negligible. Unfortunately, it shows. After a dozen or so listens the lack of depth here becomes painfully apparent - while there are some great musical ideas on this album, they are not elaborated on, so while they seem great at first they do not stand up to multiple listens. The best example of this is "Almost Again" which has a pwoerful shift from its soft verse to its blast beat filled chorus, but that is just repeated 3 times and is essentially all that happens in the song. At worst songs like "You Suck" sound like less than 10 minutes were spent on writing them.

It pains me to think that while this could have been a very, very good album, Century Media pushed Devin to release something on time for SYL's stint on Ozzfest, thus wasting all of these songs. It is still worth hearing (I mean it has Devin singing and Gene Hoglan on drums, they could be covering Atreyu songs note for note and still kick ass), but quite far below Devin's usual output. I just hope that Devin puts a little more time and thought into his next album.

I guess its a lot like SYL or Accelerated Evolution, but those two were supposed to be really simplistic albums and AE has some really good, to the point songs. While I dont like either of those albums as much as the rest of Devin's work, I can't think of any specific things I would definitely change to make them better. With The New Black it just seems like all of the songs are either too long, too short, or too stupid... it also lacks a defining character like the insanity of Alien or the anger of City... it just sounds like an album of Devin B-sides.

I don't think it sounds like b-sides at all. I think it just sounds like Devin wasn't completely out of his "solo" headspace. But that may also be wrong considering a lot of his solo mentality was found on Alien.

Now that Devin has gotten more and more popular it seems like fans have either lost touch with, or never really knew, what Devin was all about. Everyone whined about the melodic parts on this album, but those melodic parts where on every SYL album previous, just not as much. Devin changes with the wind, you just cannot expect any constancy when it comes to Devin, otherwise you'll find yourself disappointed.

Strapping Young Lad have always had tons of melody (except maybe on Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing), thats what made them different from any other "heavy as hell" band out there - Devin actually wrote memorable songs while crushing your skull. I'm all for blending his solo work with SYL - Skeksis, Thalamus and Zen were my favourite songs off of Alien. The New Black just isn't as good as his other work