September 2021 Feature Release – The Guardians Edition
So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.
This month’s feature release for The Guardians has been nominated by Xephyr. It's the 1997 debut album "Born Of The Cauldron" from Atlanta-based US power metal outfit Cauldron Born.
https://metal.academy/releases/18749
Despite my fairly strong opinions below, "Born of The Cauldron" was definitely an interesting feature release Xephyr. I expect to see some very healthy discussion on it with some widely differing scores which is always fun. :)
Here's my review:
1997’s “Born Of The Cauldron” debut album from Atlanta-based US power metal outfit Cauldron Born is a very interesting inclusion in our September batch of feature releases as it doesn’t sit all that comfortably alongside its more traditional sounding heavy metal & power metals peers in The Guardians. In fact, it may well have been ostracized from the group & forced to sit & eat in the corner of the lunchroom in complete isolation. The main reason for this is its consciously technical approach that sees it fitting much more comfortably in our The Infinite clan. Fuck knows how it’s not already labelled as progressive metal because this record is about as progressive as you’ll find. I mean this fucker sounds like Yes got blind drunk & decided to become a US power metal band & I think it’s fair to say that the results are very mixed.
I really struggled with “Born Of The Cauldron” to be completely honest. With the exception of some of the ultra-underground & super-necro sounding extreme metal, my background as a musician sees me being quite picky when it comes to performance, execution & musicianship & these are clear weaknesses for Cauldron Born. Despite the fact that the song-writing & composition is extremely ambitious for a debut release, some of the band members aren’t even close to being up to the task at hand & it leaves a lot of this material sounding like a bit of a mess. The secret to writing captivating & impressive progressive metal is to present rhythmically & melodically technical instrumentation & vocal arrangements in a way that flows smoothly & still enables the song-writing to dig its hooks into the listener’s memory bank. In fact, your less technically inclined listener should almost not notice the technique on display & be able to enjoy the music for what it is i.e. actual music rather than a medium for showcasing someone’s talents. Unfortunately, Cauldron Born don’t seem to have any sort of understanding of this requirement & have subsequently presented us with some highly complex compositions that don’t flow & sound very jerky which leaves tracks like “The Sword's Lament” & “In Fate's Eye a King” sounding like a bit of a mess really. This may not have been such an obvious problem if drummer Bill Parsons could play in time however this is unfortunately not the case with his kick drum work being consistently behind the beat & guitarist Howie Bentley regularly struggling to keep in time with him. Howie has his own issues to be fair as he really wants to be a shredding guitar virtuoso but his chops aren’t even close to being able to pull off what he’s attempted here. Thankfully bassist Shawn Kascak is a bit of a star & manages to recover things slightly with his Chris Squire influenced bass lines constantly shifting through run after run of inventive melodic noodling.
Vocalist Danny White is your classic US power metal front man. His operatic style & clear higher register tone sound a lot like virtually every other vocalist from the movement but he has a much more challenging task in front of him than any of his contemporaries. Trying to layer a workable vocal hook over music this rhythmically complex was always going to be immensely challenging & he’s done a reasonable job of it, despite falling in a heap on several occasions due to the lack of fluency in the instrumental performances. And this really does highlight the problem with “Born of the Cauldron” because the best material is clearly aligned with the less complex tracks. Songs like “The Final Incantation / In the Dreaming City” & the doomy closer & album high point “Unholy Sanctuary” are a clear indicator of what could have been achieved if the instrumentalists had stayed within the confines of their technical limitations & focused on writing some strong riffs for Danny to work over. Sadly, there’s not enough of this & I found myself struggling to make much sense of “Born Of The Cauldron” for the most part. There’s no doubt that it’s a consistently interesting experience though & I was sitting on the fence between a 2.5/5 & a 3/5 rating for some time but at the end of the day I can’t deny that the moments when I can honestly say that I’m genuinely enjoying myself are too rare for me to go with the higher score.
For fans of Slauter Xstroyes, Deadly Blessing & mid-80’s Fates Warning.
2.5/5
After thinking quite a bit on whether to stand my ground on this release after swapping my old Feature request, I think I'm willing to waiver a bit after going back to it again earlier this week. Cauldron Born seems to be a tale of potential and I was initially enamored by what I heard because it was so different than the conventional Power Metal I was expecting. Upon further review I have to agree with Daniel wholeheartedly about the performances in general, even though it didn't quite jump out at me at first. The melody shifts and riff transitions are so hectic and constant that I figured I was just missing the groove when I first listened to Born of the Cauldron, but it turns out there's some serious mistakes on this record that the band just decided they would roll with on the final recording. However I'll still stick up for Born of the Cauldron because I genuinely still enjoy all the songs on this record despite all the blemishes.
I chose this record to show off this month because, above all else, it's just a very interesting record through and through to me. There are a ton of great riff ideas in here as Cauldron Born throw caution to the wind on any sort of normal song structure. I think the production and mixing of the album is great for what they want to do, with the bass melodies being extremely present and the vocals fitting nicely in between everything. It's a shame that the kick drum has to be so pushed forward because, as Daniel said, the drummer definitely has some issues keeping up with the constant tempo and melody shifts, causing audible mistakes that are almost impossible to miss. These guys obviously overstepped their boundaries, but I find that to be an interesting side of this record rather than a complete failure. It's interesting to hear a group really try to knock it out of the park with overly complex songwriting in a genre that generally doesn't need or support it. It's absolutely clunky and jerky at times as the band members point fingers at who is ahead or behind the click, but when it works it really works for me. The twists and turns in "Synchronicity at Midnight" are exciting, the hooks for most of the choruses are memorable to me, and Cauldron Born offer a unique experience overall that makes me respect what they attempted quite a bit. They have some moments of brilliance when everything lines up, but that's few and far between on some tracks. The vocals are also an acquired taste I'd say, falling a bit shy of the annoying King Diamond falsetto and having some pretty clashing but interesting melodies overtop of the rest of the band.
I definitely overrated this album after my first two or three listens, so I'm going to bump it down to a 4/5 for now just because I do think that this is a unique release that stands out among the crowd despite all the issues.
This is terrible. I just have no glitter to dress it in at all I am afraid.
I can cope with clunky and cumbersome. I have listened to enough Autopsy to know that bands can make a reputation based on such basic (and base) values of musicianship. It is part of the allure of some bands but then again there are some genres of metal you can hide it better in than others. What these guys try to do here is borderline criminal though and this was an album made by a band who were way below the level of ability they aspired to.
Given that Power Metal in general is not my preferred branch of The Guardians tree there is a strong argument to say that Cauldron Born are on the back foot before I even press play on the album. Once the music started, they nailed down the lid on their own coffin in all honesty. I have better underground demos in my collection than this record to be perfectly blunt. It is like the band just skipped recording any demos or even spending any quality rehearsal time together to hone their sound and then went straight into the studio to record an album.
Their 1994 demo must be truly awful by comparison if this got recorded for release. There’s already acknowledgement galore on the site that the drums are out of time and the time changes are more like time lurches given their clunky nature, but I think the problem with this album overall is just a complete lack of maturity and accomplishment. Classic example of design over content, they wanted to be technical masters but were about a football field away from being anywhere near competent enough.
I cannot even find any allure for the effort they put in because the failure is still monumental. Barring the vocals which do have their irritating moments also I just find nothing else to even vaguely get along with here.
1/5
Been thinking about this one a lot this week so I ended up writing a pretty interesting review on the strange journey I had with this album. I think it reaches an agreeable middle ground that I didn't really have when I put this one up as the feature. I try to choose "interesting" albums rather than obvious classics, but I think this one was a pretty big miss nonetheless.