Avatarium - Death, Where Is Your Sting (AFM)
Originally formed by Candlemass bassist Leif Edling, Avatarium have been ripping up the doom rule book across four albums, two EP's and a live DVD. This is the third album since Edling left the band due to ill health, but still contributes songwriting. Though now Avatarium is led by singer Jennie-Ann Smith and guitarist Marcus Jidell they continue to create a style of music that is rooted in traditional doom but weaves a more poetic, mystical story.
Originally formed by Candlemass bassist Leif Edling, Avatarium have been ripping up the doom rule book across four albums, two EP's and a live DVD. This is the third album since Edling left the band due to ill health, but still contributes songwriting. Though now Avatarium is led by singer Jennie-Ann Smith and guitarist Marcus Jidell they continue to create a style of music that is rooted in traditional doom but weaves a more poetic, mystical story.
Death, Where Is Your Sting, is their AFM debut and it's the first album where Jennie-Ann has written all of the lyrics, using an existentialist mindset to link the music on this album together. This treatment of death, makes for an appealing listen if you love your music to be on the brooding, introspective side, adding a measure of the folksy and traditional as well. It’s intellectual music but it makes you nod your head and even shake your ass as the grooving riffs wash over you. Not just grooving riffs though as there is so much more to this album, Marcus Jidell’s use of acoustic guitars is notable on both the opening and closing tracks, forming the foundation of the dramatic, opener A Love Like Ours while taking centre stage on the final track Transcendent, both also featuring some spine-tingling strings for atmosphere, the former having stinging violin solo towards the end.
Written during the pandemic, the remote way of working and long process allowed them to really focus on what they wanted to project on this album. What you get is the most experimental Avatarium release yet, progressive song structures are used to create a whole listening experience. There’s no room for singles or individual tracks here, it’s kept very much to be listened to as a single album, the acoustic layering slipping into the doom-prog of Stockholm which leads to the luscious title track, a gothic, romantic, evocative number where Jennie-Ann’s vocals are at their most soulful, the keys of Daniel Karlsson sweeping through at the end as it fades out into the haunting Psalm For The Living, a candlelight vigil set to just a clean guitar and some airy drumming from Andreas Habo Johnasson, he also hooks Mother Can You Hear Me Now with a heavier beat.
Psalm For Living is an ideal way to release some of the tension built up ready for the Middle Eastern influenced God Is Silent, driven by Mats Rydström’s bass for some ‘proper’ doom riffage, slow, steady and devastating, with a tasty solo in the middle. Nocturne continues with the heavy rocking, the penultimate track sounding like a future live favourite, chugging guitars, a colossal chorus and lots of lead guitar goodness it’s an epic way to bring the record to a close, though of course it’s the instrumental Transcendent that actually closes the show, with more violin and acoustics as I mentioned earlier.
With the final moments, this record feels almost as if it’s come full circle like the mythical ouroboros, the head biting the tail in perfect cyclical union. Death comes to us all and Avatarium mull upon that fact on this fifth album, proving themselves again to be the most imaginative, innovative bands around, transcending their doom trappings into something more. 9/10
Stormruler - Sacred Rites & Black Magick (Napalm Records)
I didn't review St. Louis black metal duo Stormruler's debut album that highly critiquing the vocals and that it seemed a little too one dimensional in its approach to 2nd Wave black metal. I was clearly in the minority as there were many that LOVED that record hailing the duo as one of the best things to happen to black metal in years. Jason Asberry (vocals/guitars/bass) and Jesse Schobel (drums/vocals) return with their second album called Sacred Rites & Black Magick.
Stormruler - Sacred Rites & Black Magick (Napalm Records)
I didn't review St. Louis black metal duo Stormruler's debut album that highly critiquing the vocals and that it seemed a little too one dimensional in its approach to 2nd Wave black metal. I was clearly in the minority as there were many that LOVED that record hailing the duo as one of the best things to happen to black metal in years. Jason Asberry (vocals/guitars/bass) and Jesse Schobel (drums/vocals) return with their second album called Sacred Rites & Black Magick.
Staying true to what they established on their debut album, the album features an interlude between each song to bring atmosphere, ambiance and keep the occult feeling enveloping you throughout. With acoustic guitars, floating synths, clean electric guitars and much more in the interludes, the main songs themselves are blisteringly fast, skin shredding black metal, full of raw savagery and sqwarked vocals, it brings to mind those Nordic masters of old, biting riffs, blastbeating drums and frostbitten dynamism.
Clocking in at 20 tracks, it's probably only half that because of the segues, but on tracks such as the 7 minute Apparitions Across The Ravencrest, you can hear how Stormruler have progressed as a band, for me vocally especially as now there's variation in the tortured screams, allowing you to hear the mystical lyrics. As classical guitars of Hymns Of The Slumbering Race gives way to the frenzy of Internal Fulmination Of The Grand Deceivers the influences of Immortal, Darkthrone and Emperor are all clear and are often used as a fall back, but there's also synthwace phases, folk metal on Upon Frozen Shores, the guitar playing being especially notable.
For all the experimentation and atmosphere though what you get here is a decent black metal record that made me go back and rethink my opinion of their debut. Stormruler have what it takes to be the next unholy force in black metal. If nothing else it proved me to be a cynical bastard sometimes. 8/10
Eleine - Acoustic In Hell (Atomic Fire Records)
Changing your music from heavy metal onto an acoustic version is quite a skill. Often it's telling of how good the musicians involved are. Swedish band Eleine have been making a name for themselves on the metal scene for a few years now, their dark symphonic metal driven by the brilliant vocals of Madeleine Liljestam and the songwriting of Rikard Ekberg, but on this new EP they have fully unplugged, piling into The Panic Room in Skara to record fully acoustic takes of their songs.
Eleine - Acoustic In Hell (Atomic Fire Records)
Changing your music from heavy metal onto an acoustic version is quite a skill. Often it's telling of how good the musicians involved are. Swedish band Eleine have been making a name for themselves on the metal scene for a few years now, their dark symphonic metal driven by the brilliant vocals of Madeleine Liljestam and the songwriting of Rikard Ekberg, but on this new EP they have fully unplugged, piling into The Panic Room in Skara to record fully acoustic takes of their songs.
It was a quick process taking just a week, Madeleine's vocals wrapped up in three hours, but you wouldn't know as these songs have just the same punch in the acoustic setting as they do with electricity. To make sure the songs were just as effective in this format, retaining their darkness and mysticism by rearranging the songs for this record, so they are similar to the original but not always the same. Any acoustic album especially one with the melodic side of metal, always reminds of Breed 77, the classical and flameco playing styles of Rikard which crops up on Enemies driven by the excellent percussion from Jesper Sunnhagen.
As a band that relies heavily on distortion and electronics, stripping these backs could be considered a risk but on Acoustic In Hell they lose none of their 'heaviness' even bringing growling for a number of tracks, making tracks such as Death Incarnate sound as if they have been taken off Ki by The Devin Townsend Project. If you loved that record then Acoustic In Hell will be right up your street as an album that adapts great songwriting into a different performance style. 7/10
Broken Empire – Before The Fall (Self Released)
Broken Empire emerge with their debut full length following on from 4 previous EP's. The Oxford foursome deliver a stylish brand of hard rock meets alt metal that firmly plants them in the same sort of category of the American heavier sound of Alter Bridge, Godsmack and Stone Sour, through to Killswitch Engage and Lamb Of God but also some nods to the NWOCR actssuch as Those Damn Crows and Massive Wagons.
Broken Empire – Before The Fall (Self Released)
Broken Empire emerge with their debut full length following on from 4 previous EP's. The Oxford foursome deliver a stylish brand of hard rock meets alt metal that firmly plants them in the same sort of category of the American heavier sound of Alter Bridge, Godsmack and Stone Sour, through to Killswitch Engage and Lamb Of God but also some nods to the NWOCR actssuch as Those Damn Crows and Massive Wagons.
Ieuan Owen leads from the front with emotive, impassioned vocals that carry an angst and a longing. He also is part of the riff trio on rhythm guitar locking down with Marco Arena's bass and Matt Stevens' lead guitars while Ricky Hill sets the pace behind the kit. With the opening statement of Disguise setting them up as a band that play big swaggering riffs, it’s Before The Fall that brings the first change in their sound relying on harsh vocals for a song that shifts towards metalcore, building into the solo/breakdown section before the final chorus. It’s jarring that this is the same band but Broken Empire to take inspiration from a number of sub genres, however this metalcore/alt metal groove with harsh/clean vocals is the pervading one.
The music is politicized, personal and angst laden, with the riffs coming in crunchy and fast, occasionally coming to a ballad, but mostly it’s big choruses and modern song writing. They look poised to storm the UK scene, so I suggest picking up this self-titled release in preparation. 7/10