The Haunted, In Flames & Borknager news

News today that seminal Swedish melodic metallers In Flames & Norwegian Black/Pagan/Folk/Prog Metal act Borknagar have both signed multi-year deals with Century Media Redords. For the Swedes this is their first venture with the US label, having produced most of their discography through Nuclear Blast. Borknagar however are returning to the German formed but now primarily California based label.

In Flames:

"We are very happy to make IN FLAMES part of the Century Media Family. The band has a very loyal international fan base and has found a partner with an international set up," says Antje Lange, Century Media Records.

"This is number 10..... Album number 10!!!!! That we even made it this far, that is amazing. Then, to deliver the album of our career, that is something else..... It's fast, slow, heavy and mellow. It's happy, sad, angry and calm. 'Sounds of a playground Fading' is everything we ever done on crack (it's a metaphor boys and girls), it's cask strength whisky when it's THAT perfect moment. Use and abuse!!!!!" - Anders Fridén/In Flames

Around since the early 90's, In Flames produced some of the finest Melodic Death metal of the time with releases like Black Ash Inheritance, Lunar Strain, and The Jester Race. Compellingly melodic but packing enough wallop to satisfy many Death Metal fans, the band has unfortunately slipped into synth infused popish metal with at times Nu-Metal under-tones. Truthfully their last few efforts have barely made an impact but perhaps a new label might invigorate the band to grasp some of its old brilliance. With CM as the label though I wouldn't hold my breath.

I spread the news of Borknagar as they have a pretty solid following but are a band I've just never caught on to. I'm willing to give them a chance and check out the next record though.

Borknagar is currently working on material for a new album, at this point roughly scheduled to be released in early 2012.

Øystein G. Brun comments:
"Well, sometimes life takes slightly unexpected yet great turns! Due to internal business affairs the deal with Indie recordings was mutually terminated by both parties in January 2011. Since then we have been negotiating a possible re-signing with CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS. While you are reading this, Jens F. Ryland and I are at the headquarters of CMR in Dortmund to ink a new deal with our old partners in crime. If feels very good to be back in the fold of the mighty Century family- there is simply no team- no label alike. Thanks to Jens Preuter (head A&R) we have worked out and landed a deal that we are 110% sure will serve the future endeavors of BORKNAGAR in the best possible and most potent way. We share so much history with CMR and we are now preparing to create more musical history for the future to come- together with our friends at the Century family!"

After the split up of At The Gates, the brother's Bjorler formed The Haunted and put out a few really fantastic album in their self-titled,(The Haunted) Made Me Do It, One Kill Wonder. These were followed by the shockingly infantile titled rEVOLVEr. Since then the band hasn't even been on my radar and I'm not even going to bother with a full review of their new record Unseen, which I have heard. It's awful, and sees the band finally eschewing their Melodic Death/Thrash roots for a straight up Pop Metal album that I can only imagine appeals to those still dealing with adolescent acne. Not to belabour a point, but it is utter shite.

I'll leave you with some solid stuff.

Review: Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

Ever since their initial offering Once Sent From The Golden Hall back in 1998, purveyors of Viking-themed Death Metal Amon Amarth have coralled a fierce and faithful following amongst lovers of extreme but melodic Metal, never seeming to let those followers down. Since then the band's output has been second to none in quality of both albums and live shows. Often understandably looked at wryly by those who only see a more extreme version of the 'manly' aesthetic seen in the ever cheesy Manowar, these Swedes however have truly never put form over function and proved this with 2008's Twilight Of The Thunder God; an album of surging power and aggression but also swathed in sublime melody that never goes so far as to relinquish its main thrust of battering you on the side of the head. In fact, the album was so revered (#1 on my top 20 of that year, and on many, many other 'best of' lists) that it seemed the band would be hard pressed to top it without going in a unforeseen direction like Enslaved had done a decade before. Not to worry AA lovers, the band have not left their Viking ways behind and have again produced a mighty fine slab of death and fire.

Galloping out of the gate "War Of The Gods" is a thunderous track, pinning you back with force and conjuring the best moments of AA's aggressive nature. Throughout Surtur Rising the hair swinging in unison, and constant marauding Swedes seem to rely a little less on melody than their recent efforts and stick to more bars of churning Death. And all over it works beautifully. With feet firmly entrenched in their mid-paced dirge landscape, and including those catchy melodies by dropping down an octave and picking out three or four note counterpoints, "Töck's Taunt - Loke's Treachery Part II" slips into that groove AA have carved out for themselves. Guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Anders Hansson are experts at this playing, one carrying on with a cutting rhythm while the other dropping down to pick a melody at a shifted tempo; it's a sound I love and Amon Amarth do it like no other. This style isn't as ubiquitous as on more recent records, but it's still present and comes in always at just the right moment. Vocals are executed like always by mead swilling Norseman Johan Hegg, from his raspy and ever increasingly decipherable low key starts to his searing deeper growls. "Destroyer Of The Universe" is another battering ram of energetic Death Metal, surging at a hefty clip. On bass Ted Lundström continues to plunder out a deep crevice which drummer Fredrik Andersson flies around, joining him in creating a solid backbone for the others to riff off. The band detours from the slashing warfare to slow to a near Doom-Death requiem on "The Last Stand Of Frej", a sure fire favourite anthem for fans of grooving their headbanging.

Mikkonen and Hansson go a bit out of their usual same key solos on a lot of the songs here, choosing instead to rip out some shredding blasts instead; and again it just works smoothly with such well written work. If you're in the need for catchy, melodic but also unrelenting Death Metal you've found your prize in Surtur Rising, another tremendous weapon in Amon Amarth's already overflowing cache of deadly artillery. The longboat is sailing...grab a sheild and jump on, it's a fantastic journey.

Addendum: The album is being released in what seems like 10 different version; deluxe, digi-pack, luxurious gate-fold LP etc. Some of these depend on which continent you are on. I was given the US album with the bonus System Of A Down cover "Ariels". It's not bad, but I'm not a great fan of covers. It doesn't diminish the album and many may get a kick out of it. On other versions are a cover of Accept's "Balls To The Wall" and KISS's "War Machine".

Of 5 wailing horns:





1. War of the Gods
2. Töck's Taunt - Loke's Treachery Part II
3. Destroyer of the Universe
4. Slaves of Fear
5. Live Without Regrets
6. The Last Stand of Frej
7. For Victory or Death
8. Wrath of the Norsemen
9. A Beast Am I
10. Doom Over Dead Man

Official Amon Amarth Site

A retort to Cosmo Lee regarding lyrics

"Lyrics matter. I shouldn’t even have to say this."

So begins Cosmo Lee over at Invisible Oranges (the finest name of any Metal site on the net) in a piece regarding lyrics. As clear a premise as you will come across. No qualifiers. Concise. Of course during the article Lee presents many caveats as to why lyrics are both poor and great, and also therefore why one should value lyrics or not. I have no problem with such arguments; they're pretty common, especially in Metal, and can lead to some very interesting and heated debate. The problem is that Lee presents two wholly dismissible points as the central arguments to back up his thesis that lyrics should matter to someone and if they disagree for some reason they are failing to understand or enjoy fully the art presented to them. Lee continues:

"The first is aesthetic completeness. Just like you shouldn’t watch a foreign film without subtitles, you shouldn’t listen to music with words without knowing what they are. Of course, this is crucial for critics – one should not pass judgment on something without perceiving it in its entirety."

Attempting to divine the wholeness of art, in any form, is a tricky business not just in the attempt to glean all the information, but also in the assumption that such information is available and even understandable. One would not just need to have the complete work of art in front of you, but also the artist available and willing to share their desired meaning. This may seem either preposterous or stunningly obvious to others, but both avenues propose incredibly taxing philosophical feats. If you need the artist to explain their work, how much does the work itself even matter? Why not just ask the artist what meaning or point they'd like to convey is? If you do not need the artist to explain the true meaning behind their work you are kidding yourself to believe you can perceive all meaning from that which is presented without explanation. To believe art is not complex and obtuse is both foolish and misses one of its main purposes: that not all things are to be digested intellectually or can succumb to a reductionist system of belief. While there are certainly many cases within any art form of the artist being straight-forward with their work(s), more often than not this intention is left either to the imagination or is conveyed in such a way as to leave the entirety of the intention ambiguous. You may not like that, but any claim to the contrary regarding all art is simply wishful thinking. When one stands in front of an archaic painting at the National Gallery in London where the artist's motives are long since lost, one can still fully enjoy the work presented. Lyrics and music are no different.


Lee:

"If you’re a metal band with a singer, you can’t say that the guy you drag along on tour and put in the center of the stage doesn’t matter. He’s the center of attention – so what comes out of his mouth is important. It’s not enough just to sound good."

It sure is just enough to sound good to many. Why not? As my above point proves, knowing the words does not in any way necessarily impose upon the listener the intention of those words unless you ask and again then I would point out why not just have the lyricist write a book? Can those lyrics mean something to the listener? Absolutely, but it is not necessary and I will come back to this.

Lee Again:

The second way in which lyrics matter is political, strange as that may sound. We live in an age of overload of both information and disinformation. We are told more things than ever, and they mean less than ever. When we watch TV adverts, and some rapid-fire voice machine-guns out a legal disclaimer at the end, we hear the letter but not the spirit of laws that are meant to protect consumers. Every time we see a news story, other stories could have been presented. Omission is an editorial and political act. It happens every second. Interests big and small use omission to keep people from knowing everything – and knowledge is power.

Here Lee makes the fatal flaw of mistaking knowledge for understanding. He presumes knowing what words are used is the same information as why they were used. Again, such reductionist theory strips art of a fuller meaning or at least oppresses it with a formula that while may work for Lee, most certainly is not necessary for others to enjoy their art as much as they desire. Claiming the latter is ignorant takes away the judicial "editorial" quality that the fan or consumer has every right to express as the artist does themselves. (I also find Lee pointing out something a 12 year old should know to be quite insulting to his readers, who he goes on to tacitly suggest are not ignorant people.)

I am not claiming lyrics don't matter, of course they do, to the writer and to many who are fans of any artist. But that is the point: lyrics matter to those they matter to. It is an unmistakable tautology and as such is not one available to such a simple canonical decree as Lee proclaims.

(p.s. I actually really like Lee's writing, and as someone with a fine arts degree in Film, there is one thing here I agree with Lee 100% on: never see a foreign film without subtitles.)

Trunk, KISS and the R 'n' R Hall of Fame again

At the risk of going negative again on a certain subject as I did previously, it's time to put the Eddie Trunk/KISS Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame spat to rest. As expected, with Ace Frehely as a guest last night on That Metal Show, Trunk took the opportunity to go apoplectic about KISS not being inducted into the Hall of Fame; again as I stated in that previous post, the Hall is simply misnamed and people (especially Trunk) need to get over it.

To his credit Trunk rails against quite a number of acts who have been snubbed like Judas Priest, Rush and a few others that I agree with. I also realize the Latin phrase "de gustibus non est disputandum" (in matters of taste there is no argument) comes in to play here, but if we stuck to those parameters there would be no art criticism at all. So with that: KISS and why they do not deserve to be included into the Hall of Fame. Being born in 1964, Trunk would have been 10 when the band's first album was released, but more importantly in his adolescence when the band really hit their heyday. This is important, as the music we love during this period stays with us irrespective of its value as we grow older. Much like most people look back on this time in their life with fondness (outwith those with traumatic experiences), the music is incorporated into this nostalgia. The nostalgia and clinging to these bands extend into the early twenties also. Can such bands be good and respected? Of course, and the time they are popular doesn't necessarily discredit that. But KISS stands out in this respect.

There are many people who list amongst their favourite bands those who came long before they were born or those who came along long after their adolescence. I know many people who's favs include The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and many more who had formed and sometimes disbanded long before their birth. Likewise, I also know quite a few, myself included, who would include bands who came along long after that impressionable period had passed. However, I've never come across anyone who claim KISS as a favourite who doesn't fit into that impressionable demographic. You don't see teenagers claiming Destroyer is a classic, or even those well into their twenties. On the other end, I've yet to find Rock fans who were much older in the '70s who look with fondness on the banal recordings of the band. The reason is simple: KISS are nothing more than a novelty band. Did they sell a grip of albums? Sure, but is that going to be the criteria for Hall of Fame inclusion? If so, expect Nickleback to be first year inductees! No, KISS simply were over-the-top showmen whose music was a secondary thought. Big, flashy shows with blood, fire, ridiculous costumes and face paint? Again sure, but that wasn't even original as Alice Cooper had done it before and much better, and along the way produced stellar albums like Killer, Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out. Original make-up with supposed characteristics of the paint imbued on the members. Hmmm...
Paul Stanley aka Starchild

David Bowie in his Starman period.

So, let's recap shall we: KISS is a band with fans limited to a specific period, a stage show that was nothing original, and even one of their trademark make-up designs seems eerily unoriginal. Let's add to that they have stayed together (and by that I mean Paul & Gene) and haven't put out any meaningful music in over 20 years. With lagging sales and tours, what does the band do to build a bigger fan base? Write and release some fantastic music? No, in 1996 they go back to their make-up gimmick and go on tour. Like I said, nothing but a novelty band.

p.s. Just to add something which I think backs up my position with Eddie Trunk and KISS. Watching a rerun of That Metal Show last week, Trunk along with co-hosts Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine, listed the top 5 Metal guitarists of all-time. Trunk had Ace Frehely at No. 1! Ha...seriously? Look up any poll on the same subject and Frehely isn't normally in the top 20 (or most cases 50) anywhere. Christ, Paul Stanley's a better player probably. Then again, Frehely did have a smoking pick-up, so what do I know?

Salome - Terminal & disappointing news about Kat Katz

Although praised all over the net's extreme Metal community, far too many people are not aware of the brilliance of Salome's Terminal, released in November last year. After a popular debut in 2008, the trio of Rob Moore, Aaron Deal, and Kat Katz (Agoraphobic Nosebleed) decided to bestow upon us in Terminal, a crushing and razor-sharp sortie of Sludge crusted Doom which will rip your face off. Filled with gargantuan riffs o' plenty from Moore throughout and accompanied by Deal's thunderous percussion, the album really does deserve all the cliched synonymous adjectives oft used in Metal for music which pummels and throttles the listener. That the band achieves this with no bass player is itself astonishing. You really don't miss it though, such is the thick sound of Moore's guitar tone. This aspect along with a female singer attracted a lot of attention (including a segment on NPR), but rather than being novelties, the music and vocals stand alone to produce easily one of the finest albums of 2010.
From chilling slow but incredibly powerful passages to mid-tempo sways of thrusting Doom, Terminal runs the gamut of the two genres they incorporate, blending both seamlessly into a mesmerizing experience.

It was sad and disappointing news then this past week to learn that Katz had left the band as she reported on her Facebook page:

I’m no longer in Salome because of personal conflicts within the band. I wish them well if they decide to continue on, and I hope they’re successful with all their projects. I’m continuing with Agoraphobic Nosebleed and will hopefully be forming another project in the future.

The details are irrelevant, that's between Kat and the band. But what is unfortunate is it means no more epic albums by Salome with Katz as a stunningly potent frontwoman. Let me tackle that also for a minute. There are now quite a number of female vocalists in extreme bands; Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy, Krysta Cameron of iwrestledabearonce, and let's not forget Lori Bravo with the criminally overlooked Nuclear Death all those years ago. But whereas these singers delved into the realm of manly growls and screams, Katz does so with a distinctly female sound. It is as furious and visceral as any of the aforementioned as well as her male counterparts, but there is something uniquely female sounding about Katz's scream that is appealing as it conveys a voice not readily heard in extreme music. She plays in a supposed man's world but makes it her own and is just as viscous, suffocating and alerting as anyone in the field. As she states, good luck to the guys if they continue on with Salome, but it simply won't be the same without Kat Katz and her unique voice.

Exhorder bassist Frankie Sparcello passes away. RIP

As reported by many outlets, including the band's own website, Frankie Sparcello of the criminally under-rated New Orleans Thrash band Exhorder, has passed away. Sparcello recorded "The Law", the band's second of only two albums. He was however scheduled to play with the band in their upcoming tour, including The Maryland Deathfest. According to TMD's Facebook page, the band has stated they are not canceling the show; although that isn't being reported on the band's own site. Although a lot of controversy surrounded the belief by many that Exhorder was a direct influence on (and many say ripped off by) Pantera, there is no question in their short career they influenced the Groove-based Thrash that many came to love.

A recent video of the band with Sparcello playing.

Ufomammut - Eve...another 2010 album to seek out

It is astonishing that it’s only recently have I been turned on to this album or this band. Hailing from Tortona, Italy, Ufomammut play such an expansive, mesmerizing brand of Post/Doom/Sludge Metal it is exactly the kind of music I look for outside of the fierce fare my ears normally seek. While mainly entrenched in these genres, Eve must also be described as a swirling incursion into experimental and avant-garde music, as those expecting an Isis or Intronaut type of basic flow between light and dark will be taken aback by the musical minimalism throughout much of this record. In that sense it plays more like MINSK than most others in their genus of Metal.

Truly just one long track cut into 5 pieces, Eve is a monster like few others I have heard in recent memory. While certainly plying their trade with the likes of Isis etc, these cats are out there, crushing with such viciousness but then not just slowing things down but creating a rich, dark landscape of sounds and words that border on the non-musical. Again, this does invoke memories of “The Ritual Fires Of Abandonment”, but here Ufomammut take it a step beyond and challenge the listener with moments of eerie serenity and almost frightening caverns of calm. Do not mistake this for Drone as some have, the song structure here shifts and flows, unlike the unendurable banality the likes of SUNN O))) play. No, this may be challenging, but it is worthwhile and engaging.

Heavy on guitar and vocal effects, these are used during Eve not to buffer the band’s sound like synths do in many symphonic or melodic albums, but are used in and of themselves to create their own arresting atmosphere and melancholic tone. While perhaps not sounding like Metal, trust me these passages are as heavy in their own way as when the trio seem to collapse the sky around your head with sledgehammer like power. Unlike much of the flow in other Post-Metal albums, the crescendo after meandering moments doesn’t feel like the destination; those rhythmic, churning and experimental moments feel just as important a point as when “Eve” rises to throttle you. You’re as anxious to hear the next wistful detour as you are the whipping ferocity that undoubtedly will proceed and follow.

Vocally you get odd restrained screams, mellow chants and sparse spoken moments that all fit Ufomammut’s intoxicating panorama. It feels like a cop-out to claim any album is almost indescribable, generally due to the inability to peg down a genre, but Eve is such a unique endeavour it does honestly evoke such a response. This is an album to be fully experienced as opposed to discussed. As useful to drift of in to sleep to as to have you banging your fist, Eve almost deserves its own category when compiling the top albums of the year; not better or worse, just so unique. For that reason alone it was one of the best albums of 2010; but that and so, so much more.

Of 5 big, thick, and atmospheric Horns: