everdawn — Blog - Crushtor.net

So I wrote (co-wrote) a book. About dating. Yeah. Me. A book about how you can get better at dating. You can pre-order it here. It works, and I’m proof. (lol!) Anyway…

Sonata Arctica - Reckoning Night

Perennially compared to fellow Finns Stratovarius (100% justified), this power metal powerhouse dominated the early oughts with fast double kicks and neo-classical wank a-go-go. For some reason I always considered Winterheart’s Guild their best, until I chanced upon this cheap copy on eBay. It’s definitely their magnum opus; achieving something greater than you ever thought the whole was capable of. Like Jean Claude Van Damme’s heart-rending confession to camera in the magnificent JCVD; or Adam Sandler’s darkly compelling arthouse turn in Punch Drunk Love. This is good. Like, really good. My Selene captures the record’s mirthful yet sombre tone, lifted high with give-all performances by the entire band. Power metal as a whole is probably 99% shit - this is the rare as hen’s teeth top 1% solid gold brass stuff.

Everdawn - Venera

I think I played Nightwish’s third album, Wishmaster, into the fucking ground when I got it. Everdawn plays mezzo-soprano fronted prog-adjacent metal, headed by the whimsical Alina Gravilenko. If there was ever a Wishmaster 2.0, this is it. I fucking hate hate HATE when PRs tout a band releasing a record that “takes everything from their previous works and bring it to the next level” but this… sounds accurate. Opener Cassiopeia unleashes beltings of grandiose guitar and bombastic choirs, which sounds tame compared to OTT gothic banger (think Kamelot) Century Black, throwing convention into the sky above and waving it goodbye. The Ghost Love Score killer, Truer Words Ever Spoken throws down the laced gauntlet to Tuomas Holopainen’s top hat wearing arse, duels his recent so-so output, and lances it straight through the heart with an engraved silver stiletto. Yeah, it’s stuffed with cheese and pomp, but you know what? The quality of songwriting transcends the trappings of this often very silly genre. A+, would put this on through my headphones while crawling into my bedroom stoned and afraid of waking my parents… again.

Counting Hours - The Wishing Tomb

Imagine if Katatonia, instead of treading into more contemporary territory after the release of Tonight’s Decision, stuck to their miserable shoegazing doom guns as heard on Discouraged Ones or Brave Murder Day. That’s it. You’ve just heard this album in your head. These Finns aren’t cribbing everything from their Swedish bros. For instance, they growl. Katatonia don’t growl! Not since… that time. Long eBows trill off into great cold distances (BOO) and bass plumb depths of well-worn despair. Tracks like All That Blooms (Needs to Die) will catch you thinking it’s the genuine article. It’s as good as the real thing, that’s for sure. Lesser ripoffs be damned. They’ve nailed the mood and the songwriting. If you’re an absolute Katatonia fanatic like I am, you can’t really put this one down.

Resin Tomb - Cerebral Purgatory

It’s impossible to parody death metal - as soon as you take the piss it horseshoes back into itself. Werewolves do it to a point, but it’s impossible to tell. It’s just death metal all the way down. Queensland’s own Resin Tomb threaten tearing apart death metal into a putrid gas, red-lining the entire way through. Crushing and unrelenting like fucked movies on black spine VHS after 2am, Resin Tomb create compelling hellscapes devoid of hope or redemption. The deathiest of death metal, natch.

Flaming Wrekage - Terra Inferna

I’m going to cheat again, because I gave this a 9/10 and I still stand by it:

Each track could be considered its own mini-symphony, seguing between sections seamlessly and creating their own unique and urgent textures and moods. Paralysis catches one off guard since it begins like a standard riffy boi but halts midway to play around with a crunchy, solitary motif; drums and bass nowhere to be heard. Leadwork explodes like fireworks amid Enduring Decay, culminating in the 80s denim-and-leather throwback Our Own Blood, tremelos a-go-go and quick-time percussion smacking headlong into towering walls of guitar. There’s so many holy shit moments in this record upon first blush, one only wonders how many we’ll pick up during subsequent listens.
Terra Inferna is as much as a celebration of the rich chainmail tapestries metal can weave as it is a testament to their blossoming as an incredible death metal force not to be wreked with. There’s only one way to play this record: loud and on repeat.

Xoth - Exogalactic

If all metal bands were as intent on sounding fuckin cool like Xoth, we’d all be better off as a species. Space/alien/epic themed guitar hero melodic death piles on leads and wild solos, banking and twisting through eight incredible tracks that will make any guitar nerd’s heart sing. Think of the pomp and silliness of Gloryhammer meets the sharp riff-lordery of The Black Dahlia Murder and you’re kinda half-way there. Long live Xoth!

WAR! What is it good for? Well, making certain people very, very rich. I recently read The World in Six Songs, where “music cognition” researcher Daniel Levitin tried to figure out why humanity expresses itself in song, and why we love it. Well, he has several neuroscientific theories. Music helps us transmit information, elicit friendships, and deal with the decidedly un-scientific phenomenon of love. Can he figure out why The Eagles aren’t cool yet Fleetwood Mac are? Afraid not. Anyway:

March In Arms - Pulse of the Daring

What’s the difference between hard rock and power metal? No really, someone tell me. It’s about three stray snips by the barber’s scissors differentiating a bit of back length from full-blown mullet. If you squint, you might be able to tell. South Dakota’s March In Arms has all the genre trappings of power metal, perhaps with a bit of thrash mixed in. Think a less morose Iced Earth, maybe. MIA’s diamond-in-the-rough lungsman (and guitarist) Ryan Knutson straddles the silver blade dividing a James Hetfield from a Jon Bon Jovi. Who’s to say they can’t be both? It will churn along in my mind, no answer forthcoming.

March In Arms craft catchy tunes about war. Not military history in the mould of Sabaton. Through our Swedish history buffs we learn what happened. In March In Arms’ case, we feel what happened. The ruthlessness, the futility, the human grinder that is modern mechanised conflict. Sabaton almost glorifies war with a patriotic fervour. March In Arms laments the soldiers who never returned home. The lyrics in certified headbanger 1914: Fathers and sons/your broken bodies/forever lie in these fields. Ouch.

Ten songs in all, each are constructed with precision and a deft hand - anything less than perfection would be a slap in the face to our fallen heroes. Three guitar attacks (sorry) are seldom used so efficiently. Twin leads and chugging riffs edge upon schadenfreude in An Act of Valor; that flag on your sleeve/Well, it don’t mean a thing/your national pride/or the anthems we sing/When your death is at hand/those who’ve been there they know/We’ll stay with you brother until it’s time to go. All ten tracks are killer, varied, and add just the right amount of strings to rend steel hearts into puddly mush. Highly recommended.

Frozen Dawn - The Decline of the Enlightened Gods

The Iberian peninsula is hot for black metal right now with bands like Gaerea and Wormed burrowing up through the muck and taking on the wider world. Spanish black metal outfit Frozen Dawn have switched to Indian super-label Transcending Obscurity for their fourth record and by golly it’s a big ‘un.

Black metal, at least the practitioners and adherents I’ve witnessed, is not a fun genre. It is very serious business. Frolicking around is for power metal fairies; headbanging until cranial injury is for thrashers. Black metal? This is art. This is real. This is not stupid idiots in corpse paint traipsing around forests breathing fire. It’s steeped in mysticism and occult incantations. So I’m told.

It’s so difficult to wed black metal to the wider metal genre, despite its stylistic similarities. When I used to talk to European metal bands, they seemed like fun guys living the dream of playing music in return for beer. Black metal bands are a different breed altogether. We know that pro wrestlers are practising kayfabe whenever fans are present - black metal? I have no idea if it’s an act or not.

Frozen Dawn seem to want to put a bit of fun - not levity - but fun into black metal. They do it through the influence of “n’ roll” type bands like Dissection or Necrophobic (and they cover Blinded By Light, Enlightened By Darkness as the last track.) Though opening with howling winds and snow, Mystic Fires of Dark Allegiance is bursting with pointed riffery and whinnying guitar heroism. It’s not all blastbeats and Wagner either; Spellbound is pure King Diamond worship, while Frozen Kings pulsing riffs and arpeggios might see the local Turbojugend tapping their toes.

Though subversion of expectations has a bad wrap since Rian Johnson fucked up Star Wars, that’s pretty much the order of the day with Frozen Dawn. They zig when black metal purists expect a zag, all while keeping things rooted in the black metal tradition. It’s not accessible in the same way Dimmu Borgir is, but god damn this album will make a lot of metalheads very, very happy.

Black Therapy - Echoes of dying memories

Someone much smarter than I, I think it was Sophie Benjamin, said music reviewing in the post-Napster era devolved into “you will like this if you already like music like this” and in the Spotify now, music reviewing is all but irrelevant. Genres aren’t audience defined but producer defined, so they can fit into Spotify recommendation silos. Italy’s Black Therapy are essentially sadboi Scandinavian melodeath in the vein of Ghost Brigade or Insomnium with a bit of that ye olde October Tide thrown in. This is despite reviewers being fed (and swallowing) that this is somehow melodic doom-death, which is a big fucking stretch.

Opener Phoenix Rising certainly radiates Omnium Gatherum vibes; tight arpeggiated riffs laying down bleeding into minor key legato gutters. I mean, I love this type of shit. I would eat it every day for breakfast and never complain. Echoes of Dying Memories (the song) could have been a dusted off Discouraged Ones B-side and I really would never have known (save the death vocals, something Katatonia vocalist Jonas Renkse is no longer able or willing to do.) It’s melodic death metal in a slower tempo - I mean, name one break-yer-neck Dark Tranquillity song (that isn’t Lost to Apathy). Most of their stuff is what modern audiences would call mid-paced. Then again, what the fuck would I know. Uhh, if you like the bands I mentioned you’ll like this too. SEE WHAT I DID THERE???

Kataklysm - Of Ghosts and Gods

Quebec’s Kataklysm have become a mini institution in death metal, taking on the “Northern Hyperblast” moniker well before the Archspire dudes begged their dads to spend a cool hundo on their first acoustic. Ever since around In The Arms of Devastation, the technique took primacy over the deathiness of their metal. Of Ghosts and Gods is their twelfth album and the only one to win the Canadian Juno music award in the Heavy Metal category for 2016. Cool.

Kataklysm haven’t reinvented themselves, though almost by osmosis, they’ve absorbed bits of contemporary deathcore ala Thy Art Is Murder; The Black Sheep’s roar and flames die down into what could almost kinda sorta be a (gasp!) breakdown - though monstrous middle-8s aren’t exactly unheard of in death metal. Right??? The Hyperblast cometh in whiplashers Marching Through Graveyards and Vindication, and you’ll want to throw fists down at the sound of stomper Carrying Crosses. If it doesn’t make total sense through your speakers, it’ll click when you’re in the mosh. Because this is where Kataklysm ought to be experienced.

Everdawn - Cleopatra

Rushing toward us in a storm of riffs and majestic synth orchestra, I half expected Everdawn to launch into the first lines of Wishmaster by Nightwish. A re-formation of Midnight Eternal featuring Mike LePond (bass for Symphony X and so many bands I dare not count) these New Joisey natives are a symphonic power metal outfit centring around the gilded soprano pipes of Canadian Alina Gavrilenko. If I was a little more drunk than usual, I’d wonder if this was a Tarja-era Nightwish cut I’d somehow overlooked. The quality is certainly there. Production is wall-of-soundy enough like an Epica or a Kamelot with the galloping riffs and noodly guitar to match. This is no more evident on the title track, infused with Middle Eastern flavour and an air of mystery, Alina taking the spotlight and carrying the song into mythic Alexandria. A definite highlight is the rockier cut Infinite Divine featuring Thomas Vikstrom of Therion, a natural pairing warranting a warn groove or two. For fans of female operatic vocals, you can’t not like this.

Decipher - Arcane Paths to Resurrection

I am not sure why but this raw black metal band from Greece reminds me of latter-day Therion, if they tended toward aggression instead of melody. There is a tug of war going on between balls out destructive riffery and introspection through leadwork and easing off the gas. They do lend a sense of moving through some kind of purgatory, each movement of Lost in Obscurity cycling through pain, relief, and suffering once more, aided by choirs on the absolute periphery of our perception - if you aren’t paying complete attention, it will just smear into the fuzz and fury of guitars. There is a case for placing them closer to Enslaved rather than Emperor, though the comparisons don’t hit the mark in terms of ingenuity and innovation, they’re a good enough baseline for figuring out where these Greek grimlords are coming from - and where they may very well go.

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