REVIEW DRAFT - The Fallen

Alright, it's time for our first Review Draft. You can find out how the draft works by reading this General Chat thread.

The initial order for the Fallen Review Draft will be...

1. Sonny

2. Ben

The four albums to select from are... (drumroll)...

We await Sonny's first pick...

OK Ben, I was tempted by "Death's Crown Is Victory" as it is a release I own on CD, but instead I will take Wall of Sleep's "When Mountains Roar".

I'm picking the Solstice EP, as I've never heard it, and have enjoyed what I've heard from the band. Given I'm committing to 4 draft reviews, it's short running time will also be appreciated.

Wall of Sleep - When Mountains Roar (2010)

When Mountains Roar was Hungarian band Wall of Sleep's fourth album released in 2010 on PsycheDOOMelic Records. I have a passing familiarity with the band, mainly via previous album, 2007's ...And Hell Followed With Him which I enjoyed a fair bit without it exactly setting my world alight. Wall of Sleep play a stonerised version of traditional doom metal that has a very prominent hard rock component to it, in fact I would even suggest that the song Bitter Smile contains a riff that was ripped straight off of Zeppelin's The Ocean from Houses of the Holy, so how much you enjoy this will be very dependent on how comfortable you are with rock grooves on metal albums. For me this isn't much of a problem as I grew up in the classic hard rock heyday when bands like Zeppelin and Deep Purple ruled the roost.

Wall of Sleep are still fundamentally a metal band, be assured, and when they go full-on stoner/trad doom, such as on Receive the Pain, then they prove that they are more than capable of cranking out some terrific doom metal. But these guys are definitely worshippers at the feet of Page, Blackmore and Iommi and in all honesty my favourite aspect of When Mountains Roar is the solos of guitarists Balázs Kemencei and Sándor Füleki who were obviously raised on a diet of Seventies guitar gods and turn in some brilliant six-string showcases. Vocalist Csaba Cselényi had joined the band a year before the release of the album and he has a fine line in gruff, blues-inflected vocals and his voice is perfectly suited to this style of material. The songs themselves are exceedingly melodic with anthemic, sing-along choruses in many cases that had me having to check myself from bursting into song myself as I was out walking the dog! In fact, I would have to say there is more than a little bit of Down about them at times with an inherent bluesiness to a large percentage of their material.

All-in-all I would personally hail this a success as it could successfully fill a niche for when I need to hear some metal that still harks back to earlier, less complicated days when I too was obsessed with the Zeps and Purples of this world. Sadly, I think this would probably get short shrift from the majority of Metal Academy members as it is probably too rock-orientated for most members, which is a big shame because it is very well done indeed.

4/5

Solstice - Death's Crown Is Victory (2013)

The Review Draft here at Metal Academy has again forced me to really delve into a release from a band I'd previously only dabbled with, only to find that I've been missing out on something great. This EP from English band Solstice is a pretty clear mix of heavy metal and doom metal and while that combination doesn't always bring me joy, the great production and epic atmosphere of these 4 tracks have put this right in my wheelhouse. I may not personally feel that the Epic Doom Metal subgenre is required, but surely the music on display here is exactly what the pushers have in mind. If the excellent riffs, melodies and leads aren't enough to make you think of times long past and glories well earned, then Paul Kearns' soaring vocals surely will. The band that most comes to mind when listening to this EP is Manowar, with slightly less cheese and a fair bit more doom. I'm actually fine with that, and now find myself eager to delve into the rest of Solstice's discography. As far as recommendations go, there's really only two tracks (along with lengthy intro and outro instrumentals), with the near 10 minute monster title track being the easy highlight for me. In fact, I think I'll request this track be included in the October Fallen playlist to share the glory.

4 stars

Time for another Review Draft for The Fallen. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Ben

2. Sonny

The four albums to select from are... (drumroll)...

Since I get first pick this month, I'm going to snatch up Nighttime Birds. It's an album I've heard many times, but never properly assessed or reviewed.

Over to you Sonny...

Nice choice Ben. "Nighttime Birds" is an absolute classic in my opinion & sits amongst the top couple of gothic metal releases I've ever experienced.

I will take the Floor album Ben as they are the only one of the four bands I have never heard before.

I will take the Floor album Ben as they are the only one of the four bands I have never heard before.

I might have left the sludge / stoner release for you Sonny, given there were two gothic metal releases to choose from. 

Floor - Oblation (2014)

Apparently Oblation is a comeback album for Floor after they had reformed in 2010 following a split in 2004. Guitarist Juan Montoya played in Torche in the intervening years, a band I am a little more familiar with than Floor (this being the first I have heard of them).

So the genre tags claim this to be a stoner/sludge release but I don't hear much sludge metal here at all. I think Daniel mentioned during his Dopesick review how the sludge tag is misused and this is a prime example. Sure it has a quite thick and sometimes (small 's') sludgy guitar tone, but the vitriolic vocal delivery that I associate with true Sludge Metal is completely absent. For me, this is an out-and-out stoner metal release, so as such how does it stack up?

Well, Oblation is one of those albums that is perfectly fine while it's playing but leaves no lasting impression and doesn't exactly have me searching for the replay button. Each track is not that dissimilar from the last, they have a decent stoner riff, there's some laid-back sounding vocals, maybe a bit of lead work, sometimes a catchy melody... and then it ends - rinse and repeat. Very rarely the band may throw in a stray doom riff, but that's about it, except for Homegoings and Transitions which is even more laid-back and sounds like some form of stonergaze. There really is very little other than that. I quite like the guitar sound, but otherwise this is unremarkable and I really can't whip up any more enthusiasm for it than that I'm afraid.

2.5/5

The Gathering - Nighttime Birds (1997)

It took me a while to find my way to the gothic metal genre, having first formed an obsession with death doom in the early nineties. If you ignore the gothic aspect of My Dying Bride, it was probably Moonspell and Tiamat that gave me my first real taste, along with Type O Negative's October Rust. It wasn't until late in 1998, when I returned home from a trip to Utopia Records in Sydney with The Gathering's How to Measure a Planet and Theatre of Tragedy's Aegis, that the ingredient that really draws me to the genre was revealed to me... female vocals. Musicianship is rarely the main focus in gothic metal, with atmosphere and song-writing being brought right to the fore. The angelic beauty of Anneke van Giersbergen and Liv Kristine's performances on these two albums completely destroyed me, and formed an infatuation that has continued up to the present, when Heike Langhans (Draconian) and Aleah (Trees of Eternity) blissfully torture my soul. That first The Gathering experience led me to the band's most prized releases, and while many fans appear to prefer 1995's Mandylion, it's Nighttime Birds that became (and remains) my personal favourite.

It often feels like this album was designed to showcase just how talented Anneke is. The softer moments allow her emotion and tenderness to shine, while the heavier sections are really just vehicles for her to soar to places most vocalists could only ever dream of. The lyrics are simplistic and at times almost child-like, but they're given huge gravitas and power through her delivery. The music does everything it needs to do, while occasionally introducing creative techniques and instrumentation that aren't often heard in metal. A few of these more experimental moments aren't all the successful for me, particularly the toe-tapping chorus section of Third Chance, which ruins any chance that Nighttime Birds had of receiving 5 stars from me. In the end though, I'm really glad that the October Review Draft allowed me to use my first pick and finally give this a review and rating.

4.5 stars

I completely agree & not only regard "Nighttime Birds as The Gatherings' best work but also rate it amongst the top couple of releases for the gothic metal genre as a whole. 4.5/5

Time for another Review Draft for The Fallen. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Sonny

2. Ben

The four albums to select from are... (drumroll)...

Sonny gets first pick this month...

Well Ben, I am already very familiar with High on Fire and Forming the Void and the Memory Garden release is only 18 minutes, so I'll go with the Soulburn release, which I believe is Asphyx by another name.

Hmmm...that was going to be my choice. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

I'll try out the Memory Garden release. It has very high ratings, so perhaps it's a hidden gem?

Sorry Ben, I haven't found time to review the Draft release for November. If I get time I will try to get it done early in December.

Sorry Ben, I haven't found time to review the Draft release for November. If I get time I will try to get it done early in December.

All good Sonny. I don't think anyone should feel pressure to review every draft release they pick. Like everything, once it feels like a chore, the fun rapidly dissipates. I've missed a couple of releases in the first few drafts. 

Memory Garden - Forever (1995)

I'll say straight off that if you enjoy Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus, I thoroughly recommend checking out this debut EP from Swedish band Memory Garden. It contains the sort of doomy riffs and soaring vocals that you'd expect from both of those classic bands. So why am I only giving it 3 stars? Well, for starters, it's only 18 minutes in length which is, particularly for a doom release, reasonably insubstantial. But the main reason I can't give Forever the sort of score that it probably deserves is due to vocalist Stefan Berglund. He's a fantastic singer, clearly having a level of training to match the legendary vocalists from the aforementioned bands. But, well, he has such a strong lisp that I find myself laughing at how hilarious it all sounds. If you've ever watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, well imagine if Biggus Dickus joined a doom metal band and sang lyrics such as "With my thord and thpear, I'll make the hereticth thuffer." It's such a shame really, as this is otherwise great.

3 stars

Time for another Review Draft for The Fallen. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Ben

2. Sonny

The four albums to select from are... (drumroll)...

Hmmm... this is not a great draft for me. Even with first pick, I'm not certain any of them are up my alley. I'll go with the Sacred Monster EP, partly because it's under 10 minutes in length, but mostly because the first track is Charles Dexter Ward. Sure, Lovecraft in metal is overdone, but I'm all for that.

Over to you Sonny...

Hmm.. Well I bought the Green Dragon release off Bandcamp back when it came out so am already familiar with it. I think I'll skip the gothic release and take Kryptograf as with doom metal and heavy psych as primaries on RYM it sounds up my street.

Kryptograf - Kryptograf (2020)

Kryptograf are a Norwegian four-piece who were formed in 2019, releasing two full- lengths to date: this year's The Eldorado Spell (which I will have to check out at some point) and the subject of this review, their self-titled debut, released back in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The first observation that I must make, with Metal Academy being specifically a metal website, is that this is not really a metal album. I am not interested in the minutiae of genre dissection and have no real interest in discussions of the merits of genre tags on any given release, but this is such an egregious mislabelling that I feel I must highlight the fact. How it even gets close to a doom metal primary (17:1 before I voted) on RYM is completely beyond me. Apart from one track, Omen, which is trad doom and a dalliance with a Sabbathian riff during opener, The Veil, this is heavy psych and hard rock all the way, with the odd sortie into psychedelic rock. This does not in any way mean I don't like this album, in fact the contrary is true, but I feel the point needed to be made in a review on a metal website as I'm unsure if Kryptograf contains sufficient metal for a primary tag.

Laying to rest the belief that only ice-cold black metal can come from the home of Burzum's Varg Vikernes, the Norwegian town of Bergen, Kryptograf's psych sound is warm and fuzzy and feels more like a mushroom trip laying out on the grass on a warm July afternoon than a hike through the frost-bitten December forests of Norway's fjord's. There is a degree of diversity within the album's eight tracks with some up-tempo hard rock like the opener The Veil which kicks of the album in energetic style. Next track, Omen, is a creditable slab of traditional doom metal and, especially with a searing guitar solo, may be of most interest to Academy afficianados. This is followed by my favourite track, Seven, which is a brooding, spacey psych-trip with distant-sounding vocals and a serious psychedelic jam session as the guitarists take over proceedings and launch us on a trip of cosmic proportions. Crimson Horizon is a pretty catchy slab of stonerized hard rock that may well get your foot tapping as well as your head nodding and may be a hint that these guys may possibly be able to break out into a wider audience awareness. This is continued on Sleeper, which again has an earworm chorus that could well get stuck in your brain for the remainder of the day. Ocean is a gentle, chilled out acoustic piece that acts as an interlude before New Colossus which is another great slice of modern heavy psych that has it's roots firmly back in the early 70's. The closing track, the short Infinite, is nothing more than a throwaway outro, but rounds out the album well enough, I suppose.

All-in-all I would claim Kryptograf a roaring success, these guys very effectively invoke the heyday of heavy psych, the first couple of years of the seventies, most probably through a hefty diet of Scandinavian retro-rock revivalist bands like Witchcraft and as you all know by now I'm a big sucker for seventies' psych, so it's a big thumbs-up from me. I would be interested to know how "metal" other Academy members think this is though.

4/5

Time for another Review Draft for The Fallen. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Sonny

2. Ben

The four albums to select from are... (drumroll)...

Over to you Sonny...