Halfway through the first track on myspazz I was awed and had no doubt I’d like the album, love at first sight might yet be real. A few days ago the album got released here all over Europe. Naturally I quickly got my (sweaty) hands on it and have listened to it every day since. Fragments Of Form And Function is a especially great album, and let me tell you why.

It’s not melodic thrash as I first thought it would be but melodic technical death metal, “oh more tech death…” I hear you say, and you’re right. The genre is getting to a point of oversaturation, and it’s hard to find an album that truly stands out. Fragments Of Form And Function doesn’t bring anything new to the table, it technically should go on the shelf with the hundreds of other technical death albums that have been flooding us, if it weren’t for the fact that Allegaeon is qualitatively superior to nearly anything that’s been released in the genre.

I’ll start with the vocals, who mostly remind me of Amon Amarth, a band that is to me quite different for Allegaeon but for the clear growls. That’s almost a contradiction, but to the point it’s not evident for death growls and grunting to be intelligible, most of the time you need to read the lyrics to make them out. Just like previously named viking metallers, you’ll be “kareokeing” (if that were a real verb) when you’ve heard the verses once. The God Particle and Accelerated Evolution realy stand out on this point.

As to be expected with a technical death metal band, the rest of the band consists of very skilled members. Although you’ll the band uses extended range guitars (I think that’s a Schecter C-7 on their videoblogs) you’ll hear no Djent or much ‘chugga chugga oooohmmmm’ (for lack of an onomatopoeia). No you’ll be bombarded with craploads of excellent riffs that flow fluently over and into each other with rarely time for a breather to the point that when the solos kick in, you will realize you weren’t yet listening to a solo. (If that makes any sense) yet it’s not overdooing it. The songs work out every time, without it turning into a “look at my awesomesauce tapping skills fest”. (well… maybe a little bit, but I like such a thing) check out Biomech – Vals no.666. I hardly ever touch the subjects of the drums since I am a guitar geek myself I tend to focus a lot more on the ax’s. There’s nothing much I can remark on them, the mixing could be tweaked a bit in my opinion. Otherwise it’s a full-throttle percussion assault including many short and longer blastbeats.

A nice touch is the acoustic, almost flamenco intermission marking the middle of the album, and the slightly more progressive closing track (it’s longer… ahem) Accelerated Evolution. One might claim Allegaeon arrived a little too late to the tech death scene,  or that the songs lack a little identity to picked up by the more mainstream metal crowd. But that doesn’t mean that if you, like me are a sucker for this sort of earshattering guitarwizardry… You shouldn’t pick this album up, you’ll be missing out.

I’ve never rated an album on this blog before, but that’s amongst other things changing now. More info on this will follow later

There’s a teaser video of the track A Cosmic Question? a little earlier on here be sure to check it out.

score: 9 out of 10

Does it get you as excited as it gets me?

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.

Ego Fall on Last.fm

System Divide is one of those for me, early this year while browsing Myspace I stumbled on this band fronted by a woman and a man. Which on its own are qualities that score high for me. But add their sound to it, as I’ll discribe as a mixture of melodic and extreme metal to it and you’ve got a hit in my book. Moreover, System Divide features members of  Aborted and ex-Distorted, a promising line-up that didn’t dissapoint when the EP named The Collapse was releasedin june. I’ve have high hopes for the early 2010 album Sterile.

Myspace

edit: some seem to have problems accessing this Roadrunner Player, so here’s the Youtube version instead:

But now it’s here, and it exceeds my expectations! Antimatter is an absolute gem of an album. Spoil Engine have evolved with this album to a much more fleshed out and polished sound. One could say these ‘big’ labels polish bands too much, and complain it changes them too much. But this can hardly be the case with a sophomore effort.

Spoil Engine, is a Belgian band fronted by a Dutch vocalist, Benelux band might be more correct? Anyway, Antimatter sounds compared to Spoil Engine’s first effort a lot more professional, guitars sound as tight as they can be, and the vocals have improved quite a bit. Every single song stands on its own yet all of them fit into the album. Although influences range from In Flames to Machine Head and naturally Channel Zero, Spoil Engine’s latest album still has the unique sound I’ve come to love with Skinnerbox, a mix of melodic thrash metal and metalcore.

The tunes, In The Line Of Fire, New Disease, and Not Me really stand out for me, and I already know their choruses perfectly. The single Breathe might feel a little radiofriendly, but it did it’s job and gave the band a good place in the alternative charts (de Afrekening).

If you’d ask me, Roadrunner Records got a good deal out of this partnership, Antimatter fits more then well enough in Roadrunner’s repertoire. If my taste is any indicator, this album might be a great thing for Belgian metal in the international scene. It’s only been released in the Benelux so far, but keep your eyes open for it in record stores or buy it as mp3 from Amazon.

Tracklist:

1. Pressing On The Overload
2. In The Line Of Fire
3. Breathe
4. Antimatter
5. The New Disease
6. Seamless
7. Blindfolded
8. Fallout
9. Not Me
10. Wake Up Call

Myspace

Dedicted’s Myspace
Dedicted’s website

Living in a rather small city, with a population no more than 75k and a reasonably old one (retired people come here to die … or at least relax). I can’t say there isn’t a big selection of bands to start with. But often that doesn’t mean there is less chance of you telling others they have to hear this great band hailing from your hometown. Because this is exactly what I’m doing right here.

Dedicted aren’t exactly an unknown in the Belgian metal scene, tho it took 9 years for the band to release their first album, this on Shiver Records. It’s hard to describe this album, it’s influenced by math metal such as Meshuggah, melodic death and metalcore, or at least that’s how I experience it. It features eight tracks which isn’t a lot, but the songs ranging from 4.20 to 6.30 minutes does fill the shiny plastic disc well.

Dedicted have a fresh sound, it’s more than just those influences I’ve mentioned before. Math riffs switch often to less technical and more melodic ones as the harsh but sharp grunts switch for melodic vocal lines of the drummer. Variation is something I something I appreciate a lot and Dedicted delivers well on that front, they even are not afraid to throw in some short, simple but good guitar solo’s.

All in all this is a great debut album, my opinion of this band may have been boosted as I do feel proud these guys are from my town but that shouldn’t deter you from acquiring it, especially if you are a fan of math/tech metal or if you love it when bands combine different styles successfully. However, it might take you some time to fully appreciate it. The clean vocals by the drummer at first for me, sounded monotonous, lacking… but it grew on me. To be honest though, I would find it no shame if someone else was found to do the clean vocals on future albums because I fear it could be holding this band back from breaking through on a larger scale.

PJ,