Morpheus Kitami's Forum Replies

Here's my review.

Darkmoon Blade is a band trying to really imitate that first wave of black metal spirit, with mixed success. There's all the stuff you'd expect from that description, crappy production, not really growling but not clean vocals. This influence includes Mercyful Fate, a band with which doesn't quite fit in with those other first wave BM bands. Indeed, at moments they try to channel that Mercyful Fate spirit, it doesn't work, which unfortunately culminates in a Fate-eqsue romantic ballad.
I'm not really sure the band captures the right production for what they're going for. There's less an outright raw production in the black metal sense and more a raw production in a modern demo kind of sense. There are parts where I expected a song to build up more than it did, or vocal lines not quite meshing with the rest of the music. Something that you would expect to be fixed on a commercial album as opposed to a demo, yet aren't.
Which isn't to say it's a bad album. When the album works, it really works. The guitarist, when he isn't being lazy, has a really nice style. It's got the obvious black metal trappings, but it feels all over the place in terms of influences. In short, succeeding at their intentions, but with a more wistful, mysterious style characteristic of later bands. This is no clearer than in the solos, not some technical masterwork, but feels beautiful and melodic within the confines of the band's style.
I have mixed feelings on the vocals, he's trying to go somewhere between a not quite growling vocalist and a Warrior-style, but doesn't quite commit to either. It never really felt like he was all that special, but I didn't dislike it. His attempts at clean vocals badly imitate King Diamond, in that ballad I immensely dislike. It just reminds me how King Diamond gets away with all the shit he does because he just has that good a range, and this guy just doesn't.
I look forward to seeing what these guys do in the future. Whenever they aren't just rerecording the same album again. As I wrote this they released a new version of this album. They're new versions of these songs, they sound different, but I'm not really sure I'd say they sound worse or better.

Didn't really have enough time this month to this to this more than a couple of times, but Persuader is definitely a great band. One of the better ones once you get into that "regular PM isn't so great, but having a twisted edge" phase. In retrospect I think there's just enough on this album dragging it away from the sort of perfection I feel Evolution Purgatory once embodied to me. The last two songs on the album in particular kind of just feel like they're there, but the rest is killer.

No, I didn't forget about this, had a whole bunch of unpleasant shit going on between the last release and this one. Still, one year in one month is pretty good time. :)

Deep Purple - The Book of Taliesyn
A much more proggy album from the same lineup as the last album. Feels a lot more interesting to see Deep Purple doing this rather than the bizarre selection of covers from last time. That said, this album doesn't really feel much like a Deep Purple album a good deal of the time. It's just really that Hammond organ giving that distinct Deep Purple flavor and even then it isn't always the tone setter it should be.
The whole epic fantasy premise the cover promises doesn't quite land. The opening track, which I've linked, does, doing a very nice energetic and dynamic song that the rest of the album just fails to live up to. A lot of this just feels like some generic rock music you'd use in a movie or a game because you couldn't get a real song. It's not outright awful, but I can't really remember most of it after the album finishes playing. Except Kentucky Woman. I hate Kentucky Woman, but that's less because it's necessarily bad but more because I remember when people overplayed the absolute hell out of that song, other covers don't give me that same viscera hatred.

Would Starless (JPN) be able to be added? Some places list it as metal and some don't, dunno what it currently is on RYM.

Also Darkmoon Blade, as that seems to be somewhat obscure, if there's no genre for it (please let there be a genre for it) heavy/thrash I guess.

I think some Deathrock falls into that category, I know Christian Death (at least the first three/four albums) tends to fit that description. Getting more into regular goth rock, but there's also The Danse Society, especially VI, and The Chameleons.

For June could you add:

Ningen Isu - りんごの泪 (it's on two different albums, but it doesn't matter which one you pick)