Tom Valcanis

27 February 2024

Blog

The Six Stacker - No Hugging, No Learning

Tom Valcanis

27 February 2024

Blog

Ha! You thought I was going to write a Top 10 list! No, I cannot be fucked with that shit.

At least, not any more.

We live in a non-linear present. If you listen to Spotify in playlists, what are the odds most of the tracks you are dished up are even from this year? Does it even matter any more if we’re trudging on a constant treadmill of Retromania and re-re-re-revivals of genres? How many times has thrash metal “been back” since the mid-1980s? More times than Backstreet’s been back, alright.

Also - who gives a shit?

MERCENARY - SOUNDTRACK FOR THE END TIMES

Denmark’s Mercenary, around the time of their now TWENTY FUCKING YEAR OLD Century Media debut 11 Dreams, were showered in affection from the press and the new fangled internet as the torchbearers of melodic death metal for the new millennium. Two good albums followed (The Hours That Remain and Architect of Lies) and the band lost half of its songwriting team overnight with the departure of the Sandager brothers. Now kept in line by vocalist and bass player Rene Pedersen, Metamorphosis divided fans by embracing elements of ‘core, which was a Thing You Could Not Do™ back in 2011. (I really liked it, so what do they know.)

Ten years have passed since a rather forgettable Through Our Darkest Days. Thanks to inflation and their relegation to a micro-label and e-begging via Indiegogo, this disc cost me about $70AUD, most of it lining the pockets of various postal services.

Worth the money, though? Yes.

Burning in Reverse feels like that burst of energy we once felt in World Hate Centre, which opened 11 Dreams. All rage and noise yet tempered by processed cleans, it sticks to the brain…until the Matt Heafy (Trivium) helmed thrasher comes into view and again is displaced by Where Darkened Souls Belong, their most complete and ear-worming song since The Hours That Remain, an accomplished attempt at making non-sadboi melodeath as epic and cinematic as your average Insomnium track. Using both guitars to build intricate rhythms, an all-enveloping chorus teases what’s to come; summoning POWER through clenched fists ala Blind Guardian. Ten years of noodling around on one’s guitar makes for some real heroic shit - and this is where Soundtrack does not disappoint.

Sure, there are some stock-standard (as far as the band is concerned) songs like the Dark Tranquillity ripoff Anthem for the Anxious, cribbing the glass-drop piano sound, and the staccato hard knocks of Soilwork on banger Become the Flame, but it shits all over most melodeath being produced these days. Every track features guitar wizardry of some variation, something that seems so quaint these days. Of course, closer Beyond the Waves is nothing short of incredible. If you don’t have $70 to spare, check this release out on Spotify and leave it on loop until they hopefully break even.

Stormruler - Under The Burning Eclipse

The Shine of Ivory Horns? Reign of the Winged Duke? What is this, some kind of metal fuckin’ album? Well, duh. Apocalypse rider on the cover art kinda gives it away. Though definitely a black metal band, it’s a masala album. A masala Bollywood film is bits of everything - romance, action, comedy - blended together into a rich creamy gravy; these Missourians (what?) are so adept at frostbitten Norse mimicry you’ll be hard pressed believing this platter came straight outta St. Louis.

Windmills and tremelo picking at the speed of hummingbird wings reigns supreme here, cribbing the ye olde sounde of Mayhem and Immortal. Other tracks like the title track and Blood of the Old Wolf infusing ambient keys and galloping cinematic sounds pioneered by Emperor and perhaps Dimmu Borgir. For self-serious black metal it’s a relatively easy listen, even with pensive instrumental intro padding. Die hards might scoff; but everyone else will find something rather beefy and complete. Kinda hard not to recommend.

Godthrymm - Reflections

Death/doom? In my 21st century? Who woulda thunk it? Sure, My Dying Bride is still a thing and to a certain extent so is Paradise Lost, but tar-thick, black-veiled, glacially paced death/doom o’ the early-90s seemed to be a distant memory. Save for Yorkshireman Hamish Glencross (ex-MDB, ex-Vallenfyre, et. al.) who staved off the death rattle of the genre. He (and possibly Enchantment) has rejuvenated brittle guitar leads and mournful congregations of doleful riffs. His Bleakness treats us to a pallbearing march par excellence in first track Monsters Lurk Herein. It really is a continuation of pre-Host/34.788% Complete death/doom from gloomy Blighty, peals of lonely guitar chiming above Chasmic Sorrows about as warm and cozy as the hopeless thousand-yard stares seen in the equally cheery film Threads.

As haunting and funereal as Hamish and company’s compositions are, we find a minimalist take on The Grand Reclamation. The first two-thirds feature crashes of cymbals, a few scant bass notes, and Hamish screaming into the void. If that ain’t death/doom enough for ya, then I don’t know what is.

Saturnus - The Storm Within

I’m on a death/doom train and I don’t want to get off, EVER. Saturnus’ Danish take on the genre is bleak yet fresh, despite an 11 year wait between drinks. Like contemporaries October Tide and Novembers Doom (oh we’ll get to YOU in a minute) they prefer their riffs to breathe and twist in the wind, accompanied by pensive piano or licks that herald skinny-armed triumph, kind of like Insomnium on ketamine - the title track bearing all of those hallmarks and then some, including a (looooooong) pared back middle-8, the kind Edge of Sanity pioneered almost…checks paper - thirty fucking years ago?

Saturnus’ spoken word is more compelling than most bands’ gruff vocals, and in Chasing Ghosts, their early weapons-grade Anathema throwback is a curious exploration of “what if” the brothers Cavanagh ditched the paisley and peyote for black t-shirts and beer after the Judgement album. Just when you thought the spirits of Novembers Doom and Saturnus couldn’t be more kindred, a solemn piano n’ strings weepie Even Tide comes into focus with none other than ND’s haunting vocalist Paul Kuhr crooning behind the mic. Culminating in a seven minute epic Truth where all their songwriting powers combine, The Storm Within is a mighty comeback from another talented band destined to resurrect this dearly departed genre.

I already did Wytch Hazel, so…

Warcrab - Scars of Aeons

Transcending Obscurity/Black Box Records (2017)

First cut Conquest thunders in on marching armies of drums and a seven-note scale, fuzzed up beyond belief. It sounds more evil than Hades himself reading Mein Kampf while using kittens as logs for his fireplace. Riding a groove that’ll rip the Bayou a new one, Warcrab’s debut is the absolute opposite of fucking around. It’s so simple yet so addictive, especially when they begin a spine-crushing churn of three (three!) guitarists in tandem, vocalist Martyn Grant cremating everything within earshot.

You’ll be floored by just how raw this union of old school death metal and sludge metal can get. On bass-dominant Destroyer of Worlds their triple-attack will rend everything you love into ash. Well, it feels that way. Scars of Aeons feels like the Eyehategod/My Dying Bride/Obituary collab we could never dream of but are sure glad exists. It will bulldoze your soul and leave nothing good behind. Just how we metalheads love it.

Tom Valcanis

18 December 2023

Blog

The Six Stacker - Surrender

Tom Valcanis

18 December 2023

Blog

As a man, I have to know my limitations. Dirty Harry Callahan may have shot first and asked questions later, but in the heat of the moment knowing when to surrender ranks chief among one’s mental inventory for maintaining sanity.

Just like when a girlfriend says she’s leaving, a boss telling you’re let go, or you’re looking down at the shattered remains of your favourite mug, we’re faced with a near existential choice. At least for me, a fire spreads through my body, bracing itself for the inevitable. It is like ants crawling all over me, spitting lava. This would be my breaking point, my Room 101. Am I ready to fight the invincible?

Counter-attack is impossible. All salvos launched, all fighters scrambled, no reserves left. It’s done. Goodbye, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, farewell.

I can feel defeated, sure. Or I can choose to let it go. Once I accept and make peace that what has left will never return, it feels like I have emerged from an ocean’s tempest and rounded a patch of calm upon a warm salty bay. You can do everything right and still lose. That’s fine.

When I take to situations like this, I read Marcus Aurelius Meditations: “Here is a rule to remember, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not ‘This is misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’”

What’s this got to do with music? Fuck all. Then again, it’s my blog and not yours. Here’s what was stuck in my car for the last month and a bit:

Fires In The Distance - Air Not Meant For Us

I will never forget getting Above The Weeping World by Insomnium in the mail. It was a steal considering the heinous US dollar to Aussie conversion rate in 2005, and it was all thanks to The End Records mailorder. I remember unsleeving the jewel case, swinging it open, popping the disc in my cheap as shit Sanyo all-in-one boombox and slipping beefy Sony headphones over my head. It was full of melancholy, fire, and fantastic tones that drew one into their plaintive world of sorrow. It was a feeling I couldn’t put my finger on, but knew was incredible. Air Not Meant For Us brought that feeling of awe back to me once more.

Though hailing from the United States, there’s that pensive Scandinavian existentialism that can’t be shaken off. I mean, Agalloch were from the US and never suffered for it. To call this European or American is a disservice to just how haunting and beautiful it is. It does feel crushing, like a mighty weight pressing into one’s body such is the density of their riffs. Harbingers exemplifies the rapture and searing heat of their passion, accompanied by resplendent piano lines that even displace guitars at times. Bass is thick and resonant, often taking the lead when impacting the listener. As a chorus of angels circle from on high, one has to shake themselves back into the present such is the spell it casts over us. “I will never see daylight,” growler Craig Brettsprecher intones. “But I’ve seen enough!” Chills. This is just the first track, mind; each one is crafted with the same patience a sculptor has with his marble. Wisdom of the Falling Leaves uses rippling grand piano to establish motif as guitars come steamrolling in, leaden with bass tones that seems to go missing in melodeath.

They can do grandiose and sweeping Cinemascope metal (Crumbling Pillars of a Tranquil Mind) and churning, doom-style riffery and breathtaking leadwork (Adrift, Beneath the Listless Waves) just as well, which is inconcievable to me. Talking about Agalloch, Psalm of the Merciless gathers up those bleak emotions and casts them into molten steel, undercut by fluttering piano and solo guitar that rivals the virtuosos for hire. The rising tension and release of Idiopathic Despair is what makes death metal - or extreme metal - as a genre so compelling for misfits like us. Haunted by neo-baroqueisms that never veer into Children of Bodom silliness but more William Blake-ish introspection, Idiopathic Despair’s trailing off into the distance is the impetus for pushing play on the disc all over again. I mean, once is not enough and twice is a good start. Simply superb.

Serpent of Old - Ensemble Under The Dark Sun

Sometimes, the artwork on the front of an album matches the music found within. Turkey’s Serpent of Old is that kind of atmospheric death metal that stares down upon you like malevolent, merciless Emperor. There is pity in his face but none in his heart. His armies will crush, scorch, and destroy without feeling. It’s beyond duty, beyond fervour. Tempetuous and writhing guitars lance through this disc, putting you under its evil trance, touching the dark shadows of your heart. I wish I was joking; this evokes some pretty grim visions inside (but of course, I love every minute.)

Turmoil that churns throughout forty-two minutes is otherworldly, especially when they cross fields of flame to trudge through the steppes of doom, such is the ten-minute epic The Fall. Unsaturated Hunger and Esoteric Lust verges on the inquisitorial style of black metal, nightmarish and destructive without relent. Idiosyncrasy touches on the progged up Atheist or Gorguts style of death metal, gnarled timing and tumbling riffs crashing and exploding off one another. It’s not a disc for the feint of heart, but by Satan’s pitchfork is it compelling.

Wytch Hazel - IV: Sacrament

In the current age of music, nothing is “long awaited.” That’s because we’re stuffing our earholes with more content we could ever listen to in a lifetime every three weeks or so. English Jesus and linen robe aficionados Wytch Hazel had a cross to bear (boooooo) trying to follow up III: Pentecost record, one of the best retro-flavoured “metal” releases insofar it wasn’t complete wank and suck at the same time. Every arsehole under the sun will make out that it’s Thin Lizzy meets Wishbone Ash, which is more accurate than a Balkan baba telling you “that xena, she no goot for you” within three seconds of meeting her tanned, bottle blonde, horoscope-reading ass.

Single Angel of Light could be titled The Boys are Back In Town (and going to straight to Church) yet no one will dare say it’s a rip-off. Because it really isn’t. Just like Time and Doubt mash up Acca Dacca and Montrose, twinning and winning every guitar competition circa 1973. Organs blare as if Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep) himself possessed Deliver Us, a tambourine-shaking hippie fest, lilted by God-praising choruses and overlapped reverb-drenched guitars. Endless Battle might refer to who can do the best Blue Oyster Cult impression (versus Ghost, of course) and the 12-string acoustic driven Future is Gold will have burned out Fleetwood Mac wine uncles dancing in their chairs, regretting their life choices all over again. It’s an inspired and incredible album, though it falls just short of its immediate predecessor. That said, I’ll take this 70s metal throwback every day of the week and twice on Sunday (after mass, of course.)

Vanum - Ageless Fire

My bones ache knowing that in a couple of short weeks, 2019 will be five years away from us. It may as well be 20. New York’s Vanum play black metal, though it’s from the salt-of-the-earth spiritual kind, owing much the natural haunting moments of the world around us. I mean, doesn’t it freak you out that we walk atop the firmament from which we came and where we shall go? Some shit like that. Their sprawling soundscapes slot into that Primordial or Agalloch-like vein, especially on opening instrumental War and the title track. Themes build upon melodies toying with the “Viking” style of Bathory or Windir in Jaws of Rapture, as vocalist M. Rekevics seems to cry havoc down a crack-den hallway. Eternity is where the real majesty kicks in barreling down with a tinge of haughty pomp, like a medieval king reviewing his charges on horseback. Likewise in the Shakepearean Under the Banner of Death where our doomed souls charge unto the breach. It’s all elegantly put together and fans of earthy, epic black metal will be enthralled by the ear-cinematics Vanum seem to conjure up in this platter.

Creeping Death - Boundless Domain

If you are trying to reinvent old school death metal - don’t! Because we love that shit. The latest effort from these Dallas, TX natives injects enough variation into the OSDM “formula” cribbing bits of Bolt Thrower, Obituary, or even the proto-melodeath bands like Edge of Sanity or Dismember into a fresh and bloodthirsty monster. Opener and title track is a sampler for what’s to come as heavy languid grooves and high velocity slashes of guitar dominate before rolling out like hunter-killers into Intestinal Wrap, a homage to the gory 80s featuring none other than neck-beef enthusiast Corpsegrinder Fisher (Cannibal Corpse.) Creators Turned Into Prey is quintessential neck-snapper epic death metal, while tracks like Remants of the Old Gods touch on the experimentation of Death. It’s meat and potatoes delivered by Amazon and nutritionally balanced for modern lifestyles - but I double dare you not to join the mosh when a few of these baddies blare through the PA.

I keep missing one but I don’t know why? Weird.

Tom Valcanis

27 November 2023

Blog

The Six Stacker - Time Decorators, Inc.

Tom Valcanis

27 November 2023

Blog

One of my well worn lines when trying to pick up women online is that “music is how we decorate time,” which I think I stole from Arthur Koestler or someone much smarter than me. If they kind of swoon at that, then I’m in. Well, at least I think I am.

It’s cheap trickery, like a coin disappearing behind one’s ear. It also gets really, really fucking tedious hearing oneself say the same shit, over and over. Perhaps in the same way a band hears their signature tune played every night, an actor reciting the same monologue each performance. Or is it a comfort? An opportunity to make new memories within a familiar context? Isn’t that kind of what music is? A constant tug of war between nostalgia and novelty? I mean, Livin’ on a Prayer we complain about when Zoomers blast it across the PA at a pub for the seventeenth time. Yet, you’ll be god damned if you aren’t tapping your toes, reminded of some debauched night in a dim watering hole, a memory blurred by booze and the march of time. I mean, it’s why we keep our music on our shelves - for that far away land we call later.

Dreamgrave - Presentiment

This album was released in…2014??? What? How the hell did I miss this? Hungarian prog metal act Dreamgrave evaded the radar pretty hard if it took over a decade for me to cotton on. What begins as fairly innocuous Dream Theater worship in Black Spiral, helter-skelter time signatures and bottom-heavy synth wankery abundant, dissolves into an ethereal mist of death metal, avant-garde, and and experimental sounds that seemingly died after Pain of Salvation went all 70s for some reason. Memento Mori is all about that Scenes from a Memory jazz fusion guitar/organ/synth (fig)jam ish but gets more diffuse and ethereal as the album spins on. Hell, even the same song ends on a sparse hymnal accompanied by lonely grand piano.

The Last Drop Falls is balls-out heaviness and pinch harmonics which cements, at least in my brain, this is a metal band above all and not some art student self-love experiment. However, you can enthral any flavour of metalhead on this album by hitting shuffle. Middle Eastern sounds infuse this track like incense does your pothead mate’s couch; Orphaned Land comes to mind, especially in the more complicated sections. Then it segues into noir-like slow jazz. But it works, god damn it, it WORKS!

Hell, every track could be its own self-contained mini-album if you wanted to stretch your imagination that far. False Sense of Confidence takes on haughty Opeth and Dream Theater riffs and plays chess with them while seeing them fumble over what they think is checkers. Though, vocal entanglements between Domotor Gyimesi and Maria Molnar are the true stars of the show.

It’s not an over-the-top THIS IS A STORY ABOUT AN ELECTRIC CASTLE YOU STUPID DUMBASS Ayreon style of concept album. But there is a concept buried there, somewhere. Soprano cleans tempering guttural death growls through a tempest of riffs and arpeggiated leads in Presentiment (song) engender confusion and longing which, I was about to say hadn’t been this well articulated since Anathema’s Weather Systems, which was only two years old when this came out. Discovering back catalogue music is weird when you think about it. But worth it.

Gorod - The Orb

French tech death wizards Gorod waste zero time or fucks on mood building on The Orb, possibly their finest disc in their body of work so far. Chrematheism just bursts out your speakers on all fours, ripping and slashing at anything in its way. Flipping through the liner notes, a well of nostalgia springs eternal inside, as X-ray images of skulls and torture devices abound, reminding me of the days of late 90s minimalism as spearheaded by ex-Dark Tranquillity guitarist and graphic designer Niklas Sundin. This all occurs during a tripped-out solo exchange between Nicolas Alberny and Mathieu Pascal, a twin attack that the world will notice.

Oblique riffage and lines of guitar prowling and pouncing like crouched tigers is the order of the Orb, with the spectacular title track murmuring with synth and achieving an explosive full bloom with guitars blazing and vocals reaching stratospheric peaks, making for one of the best metal songs of the entire year. The hits keep coming in the dervish-like, Sepultura inspired Savitri, riffs firing bursts as natives dance around sacred bonfires. Old school meets tech death (Victory, Scale of Sorrows) more often than not; they even pull of an honest to goodness 3/4 waltz in the aptly named Waltz of Shades,

Gorod seemed to be overlooked during the rise of Gojira and djent in the early ‘10s - but sleep on them no more. This is S-tier stuff.

Voyager - Fearless In Love

This sentence is so brand new and foreign it may as well be in another language: Voyager, an Australian progressive metal band, represented our country at Eurovision this year.

Let that marinate around your brain for a second.

This band, who were slinging 80s style prog tunes in dingy bars about a decade ago and fighting for middle-orders on festival bills, were seen by millions of Europeans (and Australians, I suppose) “playing” (no live instruments allowed, as per EBU rules) single Promise. It’s a total Eurovision track too; staccato synths, OTT jump-around vocals, throbbing guitars, and big, bombastic choruses designed to stick to the innards of your skull for as long as possible. It works as a prog rock track as much as an old school pop track. One wonders why the collective talents of Voyager - notably songwriters Simone Dow and Danny Estrin - don’t just write hits for starlets and collect the cheques in perpetuity.

The thing is, people accusing Voyager of watering themselves down don’t really know Voyager, Jack: opener The Best Intentions is as heavy and melodic as they’ve ever been. Estrin’s sultry, sublime pipes floating like silk over crunchy guitars and sawtooth keytar synth is and always has been Voyager’s signature sound. Each track has its own character, its own texture. That’s why Voyager are the darlings of the prog scene and can also have a brief wonder ‘round the red-carpet of the pop world.

Voyager is doing success the Voyager way - get on board or don’t - but if you choose the latter, you’re definitely missing out.

Sepulchros - Vazio

Portugal’s Sepulchros just want to crush your soul into atoms. Vazio is four (technically six) tracks and thirty-seven minutes long and is a pure, untempered vein of doom metal oblivion. The eight-minute Marcha Funebre sounds like the ravens atop a wrought-iron cemetery gate, warning you off with their caws. If they were going for “what rotting from the outside in feels like,” they fucking nailed it.

Drenched in reverb, Magno Chaos could be the backing to a futuristic cyberpunk occult gathering, a melding of old and new. Their roiling, heaving sounds recalls Agalloch if they could get any more depressed (they couldn’t) and raw old school black metal threatening to decay into absolute entropy. It’s atmospheric, nigh-on-sludgy, dreary stuff. TO, you’ve signed another belter. Well, you know what I mean.

Ashen Horde - Antimony

Here’s a concept you definitely haven’t heard - an album delving into the Victorian-era murder of aristocrat lawyer Charles Bravo at his stately London mansion, the Priory. Did his wife do it? Or did he commit suicide by accident? Either way, it was death by Antimony, hence the title. (Oh, and Niklas Sundin did the cover art. Go figure.)

Each track looks at one suspect or character in the murder scene, with opener Summoning hashing out their statement of intent; doleful October Tide style riffs, leads that recall the opulence of Novembers Doom - then you’re pummelled with searing old school death metal double kick and quick-draw arpeggios. The Throes of Agony does its resolute best to snarl like a death metal beast afflicted with a side-case of prog chops. That’s only about two minutes in and I’m hooked like a kid on chocolate cake. Ashen Horde do their fair share of genre-hopping with next track The Consort thrashing things up not unlike their compatriots Nevermore (RIP) did way back when, albeit with gnarled death vocals. That wide-assed groove you’ll never find anywhere but here.

I think this is why I (and so many others) dig this disc so much; it has that US chugging, piercing axe-driven sound ala Nevermore but balances it with Euro-weirdness like Gojira or even swampy riffage with a passing familiarity to Mastodon. There’s so much going on beneath the surface - which also reminds me of oddball heavy trippers Martriden and experimental thrashers Trials. Their fresh approach to extremity is none more evident in highlights The Physician or The Courtesan. Just excise the last track, an unwelcome (and accidental) shitty cover of Knives by Therapy? and you have a nigh-on masterpiece.

Burial Hordes - Ruins

If I had been sleeping on Greek black metal gods Rotting Christ as long as I have Burial Hordes, I would have punched my Easter bougatsa in its creamy custard ass. It’s “blackened death metal” as far as the ear can hear. I mean if I stepped into a venue and this was playing, I’d expect battle-jacketed corpsepainted dudes with flying-Vs cementing themselves on stage. Though abrasive, In The Midst of A Vast Solitude does break itself down with half-time middle-8s and hails to Satan. Perish tears itself apart in its dissonance, making the most chaotic Ulcerate track look linear and bound by steel. Infinite Sea of Nothingness could make the case for its black-metallic nature, striding with that one and one-half time groove Rotting Christ or even Emperor made famous in the late 90s. Purgation and its falling-upward double-kicking cascade of arpeggiated hatred is another upside-down cross in the black metal box. But fuck me; if a black and death metalhead can’t see eye to eye on this being a top to toe banger, there’s no hope in the world. Ruins will fuck you up, and properly.