When you think of China, things come to mind as the Great Wall, temples, communism, etc… Unlike the Scandinavian countries you won’t quickly jump to metal. Regular readers of RWTT might have seen a Youtube clip of this Chinese metal band, I was so impressed by it I quickly aquired the album.
Now as I had other albums to listen to at that time I’ve kinda forgotten I had it. Recently China and metal came up in a convo again and I illustrated the existence of Chinese metal with the band Ego Fall and Tang Dynasty. Listening again to Ego Fall’s debut album The Spirit Of Mongolia I fell in love with it once again.
I’ll get rid of my negative points right away, these are the mixing, the sound lacks some body. And the other beeing I can’t really understand a word of it.
It’s hard to put a genre-tag on this band, or album. It has a lot of variation ranging from a nearly powerballad to some real belters, and many influences and elements. Vocals range from grunts to screams, alternating with different clean songlines and … mongolian throat singing. Yes throat singing! At first, I thought this to be just a gimmick of the title track, but listening to the whole album the vocal style reappears if far less dominantly.
As guitars go, it’s somewhere between metalcore and melodic death metal. If I do compare it to a band, I’d say its a chinese Sonic Syndicate, or Dead By April. Melodic and alternating palmuted riffs combine with a great range of synth effects that reminds sometimes of In Flames and the other times of Black Comedy. And here and there Chinese instruments and sounds that almost make it sound like a folk band.
All in all it’s a great album, for me it put China on the metal-map of the world. If it get’s remastered, it might even knock some of the refered bands down my top-whatever charts.
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Wow, instantly you are presented with a full force of drums, an amazing contrast of heavenly and sick vocals and brutal melodic riffs. Alissa’s ability to be able to switch between clean and scream so flippantly is astonishing.
The album kicks off with The Tempest (The Siren’s Song; The Banshee’s Cry), no doubt a tribute to their formal pseudonym. There is a great section towards the end of the track with a lovely sounding melody on the bass. Following this is the first single form the album, …And Their Eulogies Sang Me To Sleep. The false start unprepares you for a brutal dosage of blast beating awesomeness. Some how The Agonist manage to get harmonious vocals to work well over the top of this, though I guess that would not be too dissimilar to some symphonic black metal, my ears are just not used to it with metalcore! And is there a horse in outro?! This is then followed by current single, Thank You, Pain, both videos can be viewed on their MySpace.
Waiting Out The Winter sets a pace on a different step, though if you skip forward to Swan Lake, yes it really is that, but in the form of layered vocals in ‘a cappella’. Absolutely stunning to say the least. The entire album displays tight brutal beats like a bashing machine and strong melodic chuggy fast paced riffing. Concluding the album, Chlorpromazine puts the cherry on top with the drumming from Simon being excelled further with an array of beats. The sound of The Agonist excites me, well written and structured and tight as hell, of course, without a doubt the must stunning feature being the vocal talents of Allisa. ★★★★★
Album Of The Week 18/01/10
Xander
The Time Of Now Time Evermore, for me, is one of those rare records, that not only do you look forward to hearing and hope you love it and then do actually fall in love with the entire album beginning to end!
A long intro, The Time Of No Time, slowly builds up almost in preparation for the first track, Evermore. Instantly you are introduced to the entire band with striking vocals from The Voice Of Satan and the melodic tones from the rhythm section, and a drummer busier than a beaver! There are many things happening that should annoy you, the drummer can not play a straight beat; there’s a fill at the end of every odd bar, many layers of guitars you could almost say it’s over produced and the vocals have a low wobbly vibrato that instead of annoying like Whitney Houston, actually enticed and seduced me into the music even more. The Devils Blood are almost over the top, but so much so that each element complements itself in one great party of rock. Occult Rock to be precise. I’ll Be Your Ghost I love so much it was my single of the year for 2009, it is a real good feel good song. A change of pace with The Yonder Beckons, which usually causes me to skip this track into one of my favorites off the album, House Of 10,000 Voices. Again the vocals and vocal layers are displayed magnificently, perfectly accompanied with the layers of guitar tones and patterns.
The album continues back to the pace and tone of this rock, that the band say is “A theatrical presentation with roots in both 1950’s horreur gothique and 1970’s psychedelic rock n roll. Without saying too much, or saying nothing at all, you can expect a frenzy of rock n roll flavoured hard rock that speak of times decades past, no modernisms, no trends, no high end sounds. Just Vintage rock music in the vein of Roky Erickson, Black Widow, Coven, Black Sabbath and a rich plethora of sixties and seventies underground psychedelic rock bands too numerous to mention.
Christ Or Cocaine has a lovely solo towards the end, smooth and gliding in a way that causes me to drift along. Queen Of My burning Heart is another fantastic track to display the guitars, a great riffs and solos. The next few tracks are quite a mid-beat tracks but a head nodders none the less, leading us to the finale, the epic 11m11s track, The Anti-Kosmik Magick. Again quite mid-beat track but taking me on what feels like a journey through a story, told of course in rock form.
The Time Of No Time Evermore covers all aspects of listening, it’s great in the background, it’s fantastic to drive along to and it’s even great just to sit and rock out to. I can’t give this album anything but full marks. ★★★★★
The Devils Blood are still quite mystical in that there are not many images on their profiles, no names of band members and they promise blood on stage! Something I look forward to when the band headline their first UK performance at the Camden Underworld, February 19th.
Album of The Week, 11/01/10
Xander
First post of 2010, and it introduces Jesse Leach’s new band The Empire Shall Fall.
Jesse was the original frontman of Killswitch Engage, and I didn’t like his previous band Seemless at all. But this…, this is ace!
When: 27-12-2009
Location: Entrepot in Bruges, Belgium
lineup:
- Deadlock
- Swashbuckle
- Dark Tranquility
- Heaven Shall Burn
- Caliban
First something about the venue Entrepot, quite simply the nicest venue I’ve been to for a metal gig. Two levels that both have a great view on the moderate sized stage.
Soon after I arrived and got myself some refreshment Deadlock kicked of the night, although I wasn’t impressed with them at first, once they were halfway through the second song Code Of Honor their sound and vocals got to a level I expected and like from this band. Deadlock is a five-piece featuring 2 vocalists, one female singing clean and a male growler that take turns. Something I can only cheer for, if done properly. Although the growls were the least best I heard that night, great guitar parts and the girl did great and even held it together doing an a-capella outro. A nice feature was the started and ended with some electronic techno whatever.
In the same vain as Deadlock, we got greeted by Swashbuckle while a hip-hop song was playing. It’s for once quite simple to explain what this band is like. Imagine angry pirates doing thrash metal. None of that glam/power whatever Alestorm seem to be selling as pirate-metal but brutal and tight thrashmetal. This four-piece, Singer/Bassist, Backingvocals/Guitarist, drummer and a parrot were all dressed up as pirates with made the whole thing complete. This band is just a load of fun. However, their sound wasn’t that good at all, not compared to the other bands that night anyway. They seemed to be the only band without their own soundtech and roadie crew and maybe they just don’t care. But I’d have loved more definition coming from that guitar and bass.
Next, melodeath metallers Dark Tranquillity were up. As one of the pioneers of the Gothenburg metal genre it’s hard not to expect a tight and well performed set. I truly enjoyed DT, and I was quite suprised, impressed even with the vocals. They seemed even more harsh and brutal than on album. DT also played a tune from their upcoming album We Are The Void and it was possibly the best song I’ve heard that night.
I didn’t know too much about Heaven Shall Burn all I did have was a coversong they did on that Century Media covers album. Anyway, I soon got a great vibe from this band. They seemed to have a style and sound very alike the HxC scene we have here in Belgium more specifically the H8000 scene. I used to listen to nothing but these kind of hardcore/metalcore type bands so I’m quite glad I learned about Heaven Shall Burn. They announced somewhere in their set how much they loved playing for the scene where they got inspired by, mentioning bands such as Liar and Congress. The band I knew least about turned out to be the one I enjoyed most.
And lastly was it time for Caliban. I just said how I used to listen to nothing but hxc and metalcore, well Caliban was one of those bands. I admit I lost touch with the band when I turned to listening to many more different genres within metal. On the other hand, it turned out not to be such a bad thing after all. I only vaguely recognized one song but worst of all, they didn’t sound anything like how I came to love em. I still enjoy listening to the albums Vent and Shadow Hearts but I can’t say I liked them much on the Darkness Over Xmas tour.
All in all, it was a very good night out for me except for the looong walk home.
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