Avant-garde

Martin Eric Ain (1967–2017) RIP

/ Gareth J M Saunders / 1 Comment

I felt so sad today learning of the untimely and sudden death yesterday of Martin Eric Ain, the former bassist of Celtic Frost and Hellhammer. He was only 50 years old, and reportedly died of a heart attack.

Celtic Frost were arguably the first metal band that I really got into as a teenager. Every time I visited a record store I would always, always look for something from Celtic Frost. In part to try to find something rare (I never did), but in part to determine the quality of the store: if they had any Celtic Frost albums then I judged it to be a good store.

Twenty-two years after getting into them, I finally got to see Celtic Frost play live in Glasgow in 2007, they were co-headlining with Kreator. It was a year before they split up again. That was one of the most memorable concerts that I’ve been to. It was an event.

I feel honoured to have seen Ain play live, to have seen Celtic Frost play live.

There was clearly a complex relationship between Tom G Warrior and Martin Eric Ain through the years. A push-pull relationship. Something that came up again recently in a post on Thomas Gabriel Fischer’s blog, “Mammon’s inexorable temptation” where he lamented what Ain was doing with Celtic Frost’s heritage, selling off old kit on a Facebook page.

I was sad when Celtic Frost ended. Monotheist was a brutal album. It was very different from their 80s albums—it was more raw, darker, more nihilistic. And it didn’t feature their famous sounds-like-a-vacuum-cleaner guitar tone. I was hoping for more new music.

No new music ever came from the Fischer/Ain partnership, although I have loved what Thomas Gabriel Fischer went on to create with Triptykon.

Rest in peace Martin.

Transcending Bizarre?—The Serpent’s Manifolds (2008)

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Transcending Bizarre?—The Serpent’s Manifolds (2008)

Transcending Bizarre?—The Serpent’s Manifolds (2008)

Details

Co-produced by Transcending Bizarre? Guitars and bass recorded at Alright Studio. Vocals, violins and flute recorded at Underground Sound Studio. Mixed and mastered at Underground Sound Studio, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Encyclopedia Metallum | Twitter

Band

  • Kotzak—Vocals
  • Haris—Guitars and drum programming
  • Dim—Guitars and bass
  • S.A. Akis (RIP 2010)—Drum programming and samples

Tracks

  1. Dat rosa mel apibus (intro)
  2. Irreversible
  3. Cosmic zero equation
  4. The serpent’s manifolds
  5. Dimension hell
  6. Cell
  7. Writhing coils of construction
  8. The music of the spheres
  9. The navelless one
  10. Infinite

Review

Transcending Bizarre? are, according to the metal archives, an avant-garde/post-black metal band from Greece. When I think of avant-garde metal, I think of the likes of Voivod, Celtic Frost, Diabolical Masquerade, Opera IX, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. This is less avant garde and more like how symphonic black metal ought to sound.

“Cell” (track 6), for instance, is perfect symphonic metal, reminiscent of when Metallica performed with the San Francisco Philharmonic for their S&M album. This doesn’t sound like disposable keyboard-padding to fill the gaps of a blast-beat frenzy, this is a metal band collaborating with an orchestra and choir together creating a soundscape that is magnificent in its ambition.

But it’s good! It’s powerfully good.

The highlight of the album for me, besides “Cell”, is “The music of the spheres” (track 8) which captures the same mad genius that has infected Devin Townsend in recent years. It is heavy, it is epic, and in places is utterly bonkers. I love it.

The album closes with “Infinite” (track 10), which contrary to the title lasts 9′ 14″ – the longest track on the album. It opens with something akin to one of those lullaby albums where metal songs are interpreted in the style of cot mobiles, before morphing into a full, symphonic black metal explosion of riffs and phrases. Then about three minutes in it quietens to an orchestral, pastoral soundscape and builds again, morphing and twisting with emotional guitar solos, until about two-thirds of the way through the track the ‘anger’ and metal return. And then part way through a riff pattern it ends.

Conclusion

From the cover alone, I wasn’t expecting much from this album. But boy! did it surprise me. This is how symphonic metal should sound. In places it follows the traditional symphonic metal patterns, but for the most part it goes off-piste and takes us on a dangerous and exciting exploration of what else is possible when you mix such different genres of music.

While this isn’t, for me, as clinically beautiful an album as say Diabolical Masquerade—Death’s Design: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007), it’s still a highly impressive album,

Review score: 97%

Diabolical Masquerade—Death’s Design: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007)

/ Gareth J M Saunders / 2 Comments
Diabolical Masquerade—Death’s Design: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007)

Diabolical Masquerade—Death’s Design: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007)

Details

Music score composed and produced by Blakkheim and Dan Swanö. Performed by Diabolical Masquerade, with guest musicians The Maalten Quartet, Estonia. Recorded at The Sanctuary, except orchestrations recorded at Trivial Studios. Re-released on Peaceville Records, 2007.

Band

  • Anders “Blakkheim” Nyström—Vocals, guitars, effects
  • Dan Swanö—Guitars (lead) (track 32), keyboards, keyboard (lead) (track 46), effects

Guest musicians

  • Patrik Selsfors—Jazz Guitar (lead) (on tracks 40, 47)
  • Aag Guitars (lead)—(on tracks 29, 48, 52, 53, 58)
  • Ingmar Döhn—Bass
  • Jaari Fleger—Grand Piano
  • Sean C. Bates Drums,—Percussion
  • Elmo Meltz—Viola
  • Heiki Schmolski—Violin
  • Jaak Gunst—Violin
  • Artieer Garsnek—Violin
  • Konstantin Uweholst—Cello

Tracks

  1. Nerves in rush
  2. Death ascends — the hunt (part I)
  3. You can’t hide forever
  4. Right on time for murder — the hunt (part II)
  5. Conscious in no materia
  6. Different plane
  7. Invisible to us
  8. The one who hides a face inside
  9. ..And don’t ever listen to what it says
  10. Revelation of the puzzle
  11. Human prophecy
  12. Where the suffering leads
  13. The remains of galactic expulsions
  14. With panic in the heart
  15. Out from the dark
  16. Still coming at you
  17. Out from a deeper dark
  18. Spinning back the clocks
  19. Soaring over dead rooms
  20. The enemy is the earth
  21. Recall
  22. All exits blocked
  23. The memory is weak
  24. Struck at random / outermost fear
  25. Sparks of childhood coming back
  26. Old people’s voodoo seance
  27. Mary-lee goes crazy
  28. Something has arrived
  29. Possession of the voodoo party
  30. Not of flesh, not of blood
  31. Intact with a human psyche
  32. Keeping faith
  33. Someone knows what scares you
  34. A bad case of nerves
  35. The inverted dream / no sleep in peace
  36. Information
  37. Setting the course
  38. Ghost inhabitants
  39. Fleeing from town
  40. Overlooked parts
  41. A new spark — victory theme (part I)
  42. Hope — victory theme (part II)
  43. Family portraits — victory theme (part III)
  44. Smokes start to churn
  45. Hesitant behaviour
  46. A hurricane of rotten air
  47. Mastering the clock
  48. They come, you go
  49. Haared el chamon
  50. The egyptian resort
  51. The pyramid
  52. Frenzy moods and other oddities
  53. Still part of the design — the hunt (part iii)
  54. Definite departure
  55. Returning to haared el chamon
  56. Life eater
  57. The pulze
  58. The defiled feeds
  59. The river in space
  60. A soulflight back to life
  61. Instant rebirth — alternate ending

Review

When is a film soundtrack not a film soundtrack? That’s not too daft a question given the number of so-called soundtrack albums that simply feature music that was inspired by the film but was never actually featured on it. Well, this album is kind of the other way around: while the music was inspired by the film (Death’s Design) and it’s true that the music was never featured on the film the simple reason is because the film was never made. It all appears to have been a big joke from Blakkheim (who seems to have upgraded his ‘c’ to a ‘k’ since the release of his last compact disc, or perhaps that should be compact disk).

What we’re left with then is a black metal concept album, where the concept is a film soundtrack. And it’s brilliant. I have loved listening to this album, over and over and over again, this past week. Having loved Ravendusk in my Heart (1996) two weeks ago, and been disappointed with The Phantom Lodge (1997) last week, I’m relieved to find Blakkheim not only back on top form but exceeding himself.

The album lasts only 43 minutes 26 seconds, but it packs in 61 tracks (take that, Slayer—Reign in Blood!).  The shortest track is 6 seconds, the longest 1 minute 26 seconds. This is clearly a black metal album — it has its fair share of pummelling riffs, blast beats and growling vocals — but it’s much more than that too. It’s experimental, it’s avant garde, it’s progressive metal; there are quiet passages, acoustic tracks, and piano-like keyboards; they even have an Estonian string quartet (The Maalten Quartet). This album is quite, quite bonkers. But it’s brilliant! It’s utterly, utterly brilliant!

I really don’t want to have to stop listening to this album every day. I feel a resistance to review the next album that I have stacked up.

It was only this week that I researched Blakkheim and Dan Swanö’s metal pedigree. I wasn’t disappointed. No wonder I like Blakkheim’s stuff. He’s the guitarist in Katatonia (1991–present) and Bloodbath, where he and Swanö performed alongside Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt. (Opeth are one of my favourite bands. Of all time. Ever.)

Have I already said how much I love this album?

Conclusion

What more can I say? If I could give this album more than 100% I would.

I’ve only now just looked up the reviews on Encyclopaedia Metallum: four reviews giving scores of 90% (“masterpiece of an album”), 93% (“amazing piece of soundscape”), 95% (“wild, intense, diverse,…”) and 100% (“A taste of everything”). I can’t argue with that.

One review said “So why not a 100 for this amazing piece of soundscape? It gets tiring after a while — no way you can listen to this one more the once a week without having its quality dropping before your ears.”. I disagree. I’ve listened to it on repeat for most of the week, and it just get better and better with each listen.

I think this is by far my favourite album that I’ve reviewed so far. Maybe I should just give away the remaining albums. Surely there can’t be anything else to top this piece of eccentric musical genius? Can there?

Review score: 100%

Diabolical Masquerade—The Phantom Lodge (1997)

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Diabolical Masquerade—The Phantom Lodge (1996)

Diabolical Masquerade—The Phantom Lodge (1997)

Details

Produced by Dam Swanö with Blackheim. Captured with digital devices at Unisound Studio, September 1996. Mixed and engineered by Dam Swanö. Mastered at Cutting Room by Peter In De Betou. All music, lyrics and concepts written between 1995-1996. Released on Adipocere Records, 1997; re-released on Peaceville Records, 2007.

The band split in September 2004.

Website | MySpace

Band

  • Blackheim—Vocals; electric and acoustic guitars; bass; keyboards/FX; drum programming

Guest musicians

  • Sean C Bates—Drums and percussion
  • Ingmar Döhn—Bass on track #5
  • Marie Gaard Engberg—Flute on tracks #5 and #6
  • Roger Öberg—Vocals on track #1
  • Tina Sahlstedt—Flute on tracks #5 and #6
  • Dan Swanö—Additional programming and “heavy metal” vocals on track #7

Tracks

  1. Astray within the Coffinwood Mill
  2. The puzzling constellation of a deathrune
  3. Ravenclaw
  4. The walk of the hunchbacked
  5. Cloaked by the moonshine mist
  6. Across the open vault and away… (instrumental)
  7. Hater
  8. The blazing demondome of murmurs and secrecy
  9. Upon the salty wall of the broody gargoyle

Review

Another week, another Diabolical Masquerade album to review; and there’s another one coming up next week. I’m stuck in some kind of black metal Groundhog Day.

I have to admit that I got rather distracted this week, partly by work and a couple of web development projects I’m working on at home, but mostly—in terms of listening—by the new Steven Wilson album, Hand. Cannot. Erase, that was released on Monday. So this has been a largely in-car listening review.

I really liked last week’s album Ravendusk In My Heart so I was hoping for something similarly good, even if this was the difficult second album.

In many ways this is more of the same but unlike their debut I didn’t quite connect with this album. I know there is often a tension between fans wanting more of the same and bands wanting to develop, I can’t quite work out on which side of that argument this album lies. Perhaps it would take a few more listens before I fully appreciated it.

A few tracks stand out, though. “Ravenclaw” (track 3) has a kind of plodding mediaeval feel which is quite out of keeping with the rest of the album, but that does make it memorable.

“Across the open vault and away” (track 6) is quite a beautiful, acoustic instrumental. Why is it that metal bands can write such beautifully sweet melodies in a way that is absent from almost every other genre? (I’m not complaining.)

“Hater” (track 7) has a very old school thrash feel, with vocals that wander from King Diamond to Jeff Waters (Annihilator).

The final track “Upon the salty wall of the broody gargoyle” opens with a riff that could easily be early Celtic Frost, even the vocals are very Tom G Warrior—including a few ‘death grunts’. It’s quite brilliant.

Conclusion

Even though I didn’t get to spend as much time with the album as I would have liked, even just listening through it just now as I wrote this it still made me smile. Again, this is definitely a keeper. I look forward to listening to this and its older sibling back-to-back.

Review score: 80%

Diabolical Masquerade—Ravendusk In My Heart (1996)

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Diabolical Masquerade—Ravendusk In My Heart (1996)

Diabolical Masquerade—Ravendusk In My Heart (1996)

Details

Produced by Dan Swanö with Blackheim. Captured with analogue devices at Unisound Studio, September 1995. Mixed and engineered by Dan Swanö. Mastered by Peter In De Betou at The Cutting Room. All music, lyrics and concepts written between 1993-1995. Released on Adipocere Records, 1996; re-released on Peaceville Records, 2007.

The band split in September 2004.

Website | MySpace

Band

  • Blackheim—Vocals; electric and acoustic guitars; bass; keyboards/FX; drum programming
  • Dan Swanö—Drum programming and “heavy metal” vocals on track #5
  • The Spirits—Unearthly presence

Tracks

  1. The castle of Blackheim
  2. Blackheim’s quest to bring back the stolen autumn
  3. Beyond the spiritual moon
  4. The sphere in Blackheim’s shrine
  5. Under the banner of the sentinel
  6. Blackheim’s forest kept the seasons forever
  7. The darkblue seajourneys of the sentinel
  8. Blackheim’s hunt for nocturnal grace
  9. Ravendusk in my heart

Review

Until this album I had only 18 black metal albums in my CD collection (I still have a few more albums on cassette). I was hoping that I’d like this one, not least because I have another two Diabolical Masquerade albums to review after this.

The band essentially consists of two people Dan Swanö on drum programming and Blackheim on everything else. According to Encyclopaedia Metallum the band split in 2004 and despite various rumours about a comeback to date it is yet to happen.

This isn’t a black metal-by-numbers album. In the style of a Marks & Spencer’s advert. This isn’t just black metal, this is avant-garde, atmospheric black metal. And it’s good. It’s really good.

I say this quite a lot in these reviews. What I’m really looking for is something that is interesting, not just a solid wall of white noise with uncontrolled yelling. This album definitely ticks that particular box.

The album opener, “The castle of Blackheim”, begins as you might expect with a quietly atmospheric clean guitar then kicks into a fairly standard black metal style riff. But about three minutes in there’s a new melody that sounds like an electric saw, that makes a reappearance around 5′ 30″. It’s not much but darn! it’s effective.

With some songs there is an almost NWOBHM feel to parts, such as the instrumental “Beyond the spiritual moon” and the main riff in “Blackheim’s forest kept the season forever”. That song deserves special mention as it also features King Diamond-style vocals from Dan Swanö and an atonal guitar solo that could have been lifted from a Slayer album.

Another highlight for me is “Blackheim’s hunt for nocturnal grace” which opens nicely with a quietly picked bass arpeggio. The song then creeps along like a creature lurching between pools of light, trying to catch its step between one lamppost and the next. The deep throaty spoken words around five minutes in is rather special. But the sudden high frequency tone at 7′ 20″ is enough on some days to give me a crippling headache within a split second.

With five mentions of Blackheim in the song title, one does wonder whether Blackheim always speaks about Blackheim in the third person.

The closing track, the title track, “Ravendusk in my heart” has a strong bass dominance (think Megadeth “Dawn Patrol”) and a resurgence of deep, gruff spoken vocals.

Conclusion

Each album I put on during this project I do so with a sense of hope and anticipation. I wasn’t let down by this album. The more I’ve listened to it, the more I’ve enjoyed and the more subtleties I’ve been able to appreciate. This has been quite a pleasant surprise and a great find. A definite keeper.

Review score: 94%

Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto

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Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto

Opera IX—1998—Sacro Culto

Details

Recorded at Cap. Woofer Studios in autumn 1997. Produced by Opera IX and Stefano Tappari. Mastered by Elettroformati S.R.L.

www.operaix.it

Band

  • Cadaveria—Vocals
  • Ossian—Guitars
  • Lunaris—Keyboards
  • Vlad—Bass
  • Flegias—Drums

Tracks

  1. The oak
  2. Fronds of the ancient walnut
  3. The naked and the dance
  4. Cimmeries
  5. My devotion
  6. Under the sign of the red dragon

Review

So, to Opera IX‘s second full-length album and my second exposure to them.

The production is significantly better on this compared with The Call of the Wood (1995), the jangling bag of spanners has been replaced with a proper drum kit, and the rest of the instruments sound more present (rather than recorded at the other end of the hall).

The album starts with (female) vocalist Cadaveria barking the opening lyrics “In the whirls of time…”, followed by the kind of doom-like, dirge that wouldn’t have gone amiss on an early Paradise Lost album. Which pretty much sets the tone for the album as a whole: it’s a blend of black metal meets gothic.

As its predecessor, this album contains long, long songs: 10:40, 12:25, 8:20, 12:42. 14:59, and 11:18. That’s six songs in a little over 70 minutes.

The second track, which has the most splendidly bonkers title of “Fronds of the ancient walnut”, more than certainly draws on influence from Swiss avant-garde black metal pioneers Celtic Frost.

“The naked and the dance” is part folk metal, part a full-on thrashtastic, black metal wall of sound. I quite like it. It’s different.

“Cimmeries” (whatever they are) starts with a slow doom-like riff, part Paradise Lost/part-Celtic Frost. Of course the whole song lasts over 12 minutes so it doesn’t stay like that for long. More twisting and turning black metal riffs overlaid with shouting.

“My devotion” again opens slowly, with an atmospheric keyboard sound, bells and haunting (“aahhhh”) vocals, acoustic guitar and clean bass. It too soon melds into a doom-like dirge.

Guess how the last track starts. Slow and quiet? You got it. Bass guitar this time, overlaid with a passionate guitar solo. The doom-like dirge isn’t far behind.

Conclusion

Overall this isn’t a bad album. It’s definitely a leap ahead of its predecessor. The production is better, the song writing is better, and Opera IX appears to have moved in the three years from melodic black metal more towards a fusion of black metal, gothic and doom which fits their sound well.

My main criticism, I think, is that the songs are simply too long. They often begin with an interesting music theme that might be fun to explore and adapt throughout a five or six minute track, but these songs often go on for twice that length. By the end of the song I’ve forgotten how it began, and it appears to be a million miles from there anyway.

Black metal’s not really my bag, but this album has some interesting moments.

Review score: 67%

Video

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpvTy7o5AN0]

Laibach—Volk Tour London CC Club (2007)

/ Gareth J M Saunders / 1 Comment
Laibach—Volk Tour, London CC Club (2007)

Laibach—Volk Tour, London CC Club (2007)

Details

A special limited edition 2 CD live album by Slovenian industrial/techno music group Laibach. The album is a full recording of the band’s live show in London at CC Club on 16 April 2007. CD 1 contains the first part of the concert with songs from Laibach’s new album Volk (2006) except for track ‘Vaticanae’, CD 2 contains a mix of other songs (mostly from album WAT (2003)).

Recorded by Will Shapland for Live Here Now & Will Shapland Mobiles. Assisted by David Loudoun, Chris Goddard, Joe Adams, Andy Rana, Saxon, Noggin, Iain Forsyth, MJ.

Band (pseudonyms)

  • Eber
  • Saliger
  • Dachauer
  • Keller

Tracks

CD 1

  1. Germania
  2. America
  3. Anglia
  4. Rossiya
  5. Francia (part 1)
  6. Francia (part 2)
  7. Italia
  8. España
  9. Yisra’el
  10. Türkiye
  11. Zhonghuá
  12. Nippon
  13. Slovania
  14. NSK

CD 2

  1. Tanz mit Laibach
  2. Alle gegen Alle
  3. Du bist Unser
  4. Hell: Symmetry
  5. Achtung!
  6. Das Spiel ist Aus
  7. Turbo-Volk Mix (by iTurk)

Review

A couple of years ago I attended a web conference (IWMW) for university web teams where I made friends with a cheery Welshman, Kevin Mears, who draws the most incredible graphical notes during talks. Soon our conversation turned to music and Kevin most heartily recommended that I listen to Laibach, a Slovakian industrial/avante-garde band I had never heard of Laibach before.

As chance would have it, a few months later I took delivery of this batch of 195 CDs and amongst them was this double, live album.

Laibach - Volk Tour London CC Club inside CD artwork

Laibach – Volk Tour London CC Club inside CD artwork

I usually don’t look up an album that I’m reviewing, in case it influences my opinion of it. I’d much rather draw my own conclusions. But after a few listens I was struggling with this one.

It was enough, however, to simply understand that this is the live version of Volk Laibach’s 2006 concept album inspired by thirteen national or pan-national anthems, including the anthem for NSK, the virtual state to which Laibach belongs. It all began to make a little more sense now that I had a little more context.

The second CD, it turns out, contains a mixture of other Laibach songs, mostly from the album WAT (2003).

The first CD is on the whole a very acoustic album. It is quiet and subtle; ponderous even. There are a few exceptions. ‘Yisra’el’ (track 9) has a bit of a bite to it, for example; and ‘Türkiye’ (track 10) has a nice groove. ‘NSK’ (track 14) has a triumphant-but-lamentful, marching soviet feel to it.

The second CD sounds almost like a completely different band. Like a club-thumpin’ Rammstein pounding out their bangin’ tunes! I rather enjoyed it to be honest, as mindless, background noise to some repetitive copy-and-paste task that was consuming me at the time.

Conclusion

My opinion of this album got better the more I listened to it, and the more I read about its concept. I imagine if this album started while WinAmp was set to random play I would likely listen to it again. But I couldn’t see myself hunting it out to put it on, to be honest.

Review score: 60%

Video