Rexorcist's Reviews

I only recently became a big fan of Symphony X.  By this point, I've heard almost all of their albums and I'm been finding myself going back to the albums I've already heard more often than most prog bands I've heard, even my ex-favorite Dream Theater.  This is progginess at a very creative level, and they keep being creative even by today's standards.  And one of those shining gems is ironically their most accessible, Paradise Lost, which sacrifices some of their signature neoclassical sound (the genre they perfected) for more straightforward prog.

The album starts out with the band's best "intro" song, "Oculus Ex Inferni," which boasts the band's strongest symphonic sounds yet.  Honestly, the intro is so magical that you'd have to wonder if James Horner wrote it.  Then "Set the World On Fire" comes up, and it's probably Symphony X's heaviest song so far.  There are significantly less neoclassical elements as a result, leading the organ the band loves so much to be an occasional element of instrumental focus.

Obviously, Paradise Lost was an attempt in making their most "metal" album, and while I willingly promote the progression and right to change a signature sound, the album did come off as a little samey at the end.  But these guys have not lost any of their identity; they just cranked the power of their prog and power metal up a notch.  In "Domination," it's more of the same but with a little more groove.  Nevertheless, Russell Allen is wailing like he's got something to gain, and as a result there's a lot of spirit and power in the songs, and he keeps itself from being "too much," even though the extra power could potentially be considered too much when compared with past albums.  There is more of this kind of vibe with the edge factor cranked up until we reach its first ballad, the title track.

That title track is fucking addicting.  The instrumentation of the 6-6-6-7 timing of the intro is one of the most beautiful opining melodies I've heard, and the rest of the song progresses along with that beauty.  True, the lyrics to the verses are damn typical, but the chorus is so beautifully worded that it almost doesn't matter (besides, the lyrics are still better than the damn catchy Huntik theme).  And once we reach the guitar solo, it manages to be a metal solo but still carry that melodic beauty of the intro well with its very high pitch.  I just wrote a full paragraph for the once song.

Immediately afterwards, we get the heavy metal riffage of "Eve of Seduction," which carries an attitude only seen in 80's-90's hard rock and grunge for most of it, so the song itself ends up being a real jam, despite the fact that it's still susceptible to the progressive nature of the album.  Afterwards is the second-to-longest track, "The Walls of Babylon," which begins with a surreal Babylonian instrumentation... but then tricks you and goes right back to the heavy metal.  Still, the way the international influences are mingled in rings heavily of the best works of Therion.  It's also their most progressive song on this album, as the metal, symphony and progginess switches around for three-and-a-half minutes until we get our lyrics.

Afterwards is "Seven," which is the most blatantly power-based and neoclassical, ringing some memories of "The Divine Wings of Tragedy," despite the fact that its cheesy power metal lyrics ring of past heavy-power acts like Grave Digger.  Next is "The Sacrifice," and I don't have much to say about this one except that it's yet another great ballad, but nowhere near as good as the title track because it's more melodramatic, and once again our friend Russell feels the need to wail like a lion.  And finally, we hit the big grand finale, the epic "Revelation," which carries a tone, structure and vibe very reminiscent of "Evolution" from their previous album V: The New Mythology Suite, carrying a very strong heavy prog presence, and vocals by Russell which aren't as loud or over-the-top.

Diehard prog fans may be turned off by the newfound accessibility of Symphony X, but this is not to say that they sold out.  The musicianship is still at peak level, even though it's more straight-up prog than neoclassical.  Honestly, if you like your metal heavy, the this is definitely the Symphony X album for you.  It's not a worse Symphony X, just a more traditional form of prog metal (and I separate "traditional" from "generic" in this instance).  I give this my highest recommendation, as it is a perfect entryway into Symphony X and prog metal.

Symphony X are pretty much the go-to band for the neoclassical sound.  Yes, there were earlier guitar pioneers, like Yngwie Malmsteen, but Symphony X are about the BAND, not the riffs.  It took three albums for them to perfect the art of riffage, thus being the firest neoclassical prog metal act.  Divine Wings of Tragedy is seen by some as their opus, but they hadn't yet mastered the art of album-making, which requires some diversity to stay as strong as possible for an hour.  That's something Divine Wings of Tragedy didn't quite have.  Twilight in Olympus had it in spades, and because of that I feel it is my proud obligation to express my opinion that Twilight in Olympus shows clear superiority over Divine Wings, which is an unpopular opinion to say the least.

Divine Wings of Tragedy was all about the progressive riffage mingling with the classical, but it was pretty much one kind of classical.  Twlight in Olypus sounds like it is in fact a magical album, one that givies into the glitter without giving up the crunch.  Because of this, the more surreal and mythical moments feel so natural that it's easy to float on a cloud whiles and at the same time headbanging.  This is very true for some of the more conventional songs as well, such as the incredible opener Smoke and Mirrors and the later Orion, which mingle the pop structure with the neoclassical prog sound beautifully.  But our show stealer is the thirteen minute epic, Through the Looking Glass, which recounts the story of the same name with a type of magic unheard of in previous Alice in Wonderland songs, one that does everything a prog epic should, deliver a part of a rock opera while carefully balancing out the multiple essential aspects of rock, metal, prog and classical.  bsolutely flawless.

This album carries a lot of tricks up its sleeves that Divine Wings didn't have, and to this point the album is only surpassed by the band via V: The New Mythology Suite, and closely followed by Paradise Lost.  This is THE essential neoclassical sound which anyone hoping to get into the genre should probably check out first.  This is also the album I return to the most when I want serious magic.

Aside from the solo careers of Vinnie Moor and Yngwie Malmsteen, there weren't many people taking part in the more neoclassical side of metal.  Two bands can be thanked for bringing classical to metal: Blind Guardian and Symphony X.  Blind Guardian started as a thrash band and eventually evolved into a more classical one over the course of six albums.  Symphony X, however, started immediately.  But they needed practice in making it sound good.  By their third album, The Divine Wings of Tragedy, they had done it.

Divine Wings of Tragedy is a 65 minute blast of symphonies and and technical riffage that never once lets up.  The first and foremost aspect of the album is the art of the tune.  Yes, there are plenty of moments where the band goes off on hyper-technical construction where some might call it pretentiousness, but the truth of the matter as that every note, every progression and every effort to capture the essence of the Western Classical era is lived up to.  SOme of the most incredible guitars solos I've ever heard are on this album, and practically the whole album is incredible.  And their singer, Russell Allen, gives it his all.  His range is at full display as he knows when to sing like a rough and nasty metal artist, when to be more soft-spoken and to reach soaring heights.

There is one faint problem with the album.  The entire album takes right after the opener, "Of Sin and Shadows," which means despite being incredible, it's essentially predictable by the end because the pace itself isn't really changes and these songs don't really have their own identity.  But for some, that may not matter, because as a metal album, it's practically a perfect example of how to balance riffs, melodies, aethetic and meaning.  This is a very complex album in terms of structuring.  And it serves as a great entryway into the neoclassical genre that Symphony X redefined.

I discovered Sonata Arctica through their sophomore release, Silence, and I fell in love with it.  At the time of playing their music for the first time, I was aware that the metal masses consider their best release to be their debut, Ecliptica.  I wasn't fully converted, but I admit this is far better than most power metal albums I've heard.  Sonata Arctica's sense of magical energy and hyper-jovial attitude reached soaring heights right from the get-go as neoclassical guitars effortlessly carry the overpowering mood from one track to another.  Ecliptica boasts some of the finest power metal solos and riffs known to man, and the band made it look easy, proving that they didn't need any time to develop their style over the course of their musical career.  They were already brilliant.  The key factor in the difference between Ecliptica and Silence is that the latter boasted more diversity, switching from power to prog to neoclassical to ballad to jam to epic.  The debut is different in the sense that most of the songs, while typically brilliant, are effectively attempting to achieve the same goal of hyper-jovial energy and riffage.  But nevertheless, this album boasts early stages of brilliance, and it's a shame that the Sonata Arctica albums of recent times can't carry that same spirit anymore.

The creators of death metal, the very band the genre is named after, weren't just a bunch of guys that did really good metal.  They KEPT ON revolutionizing the genre.  All this started when they released what was potentially the heaviest album ever made with their debut: Scream Bloody Gore.  It ended when they made death metal an accessible genre with their sixth album, Symbolic.  And in the middle of that was a strange progression from the ultra heavy sophomore, Leprosy, the more technical but still underwhelming Spiritual Healing, and the album that turned death metal into an intelligent genre where one had to actually think, you know, beyond making gory sentences out of long words and medical terms.  They turned death metal into a metal genre for thinkers and intellectuals, one that was all about exploring the human condition, and that album was named: Human.

This is the second-to-last album to feature the traditional tone of Death albums before they raised the thrash influence on Symbolic.  This also means it bridges the gap of general accessibility between the raw thrashing and the lighter and more melodic introspection.  So suffice it to say, this is the most representative of the whole Death catalogue.  Because this is the first to get really technical, the drummer hired from Cynic was allowed to get crazy with it and build a real beat-based album by just being himself.  The intro of our first track, Flattening of Emotions, literally opens up with the drummer bridging a weird gap between tribal atmospheres and jazzy technicality.  This is a major factor for what makes Human one of those albums where tempo changes feel so fluent and natural, and the rest of the band is doing what they can to keep up with that technicality.  This also has to do with the clean production and the flawless flow of the album, the latter of which leads me to call into question the typical criticism I have where an album's songs are a little difficult to truly differentiate from each other because of so few changes in style, save for the softer and more melodic instrumental, Cosmic Sea.  I mean, how many blastbeat sections need to be at 200 BPM?  This isn't a symphonic power metal album.

Human redefines death metal in a plethora of ways.  It captures the roughest and nastiest sides of the band's music without relying on the goriness of previous albums, because there's a lot of room for intelligence and sophistication that they rarely wasted.  This album is the definition of effort, as an overwhelming amount of it was put into the idea of composition.  Death pulled a Wes Craven by focusing less on the rated-X sex, gore and yadda yadda, and focusing more on themes.  In other words, Chuck grew the hell up.  And while the recycling of the same base structural ideas does get on my nerves slightly, I'm still going to commend this as the standard sound for what a death metal album should be like.

At the time of Blind Guardian's conception, they were just another speed band trying to make it big in a German scene.  There was no way in hell they could compete with Helloween, who defined the power metal sound.  This isn't to say they were bad, but they couldn't hold one of their LOTR-scented candles to them or Running Wild.  But thanks to them and Symphony X, the classical/symphonic influence was no longer a lyrical thing.  Albeit, Symphony X got right to it with their debut, and Blind Guardian slowly built it up from Tales from the Twilight World.  Just before the band went almost full-symphonic, there was that transition from speed to fantasy: Tales from the Twilight World, Somewhere Far Beyond, and one of their two most iconic albums: Imaginations from the Other Side.

Imaginations delivers all of the goods a true Blind Guardian fan should want from them: the speed, the symphony, the heaviness and the pop-culture poetics.  The title track alone lets you know just how hard these guys will thrash without being an extreme band, but at the same time the heavy symphonic sound is exactly like something you'd expect from a "dark fantasy" film like The Dark Crystal.  Truly epic without overdoing it.  And Hansi Kursch, as a singer, absolutely refuses to control himself, which helps the heaviness a lot more than it hinders.  And thankfully, not every song is just another excuse to be as heavy as possible at a 180 beat rhythm that power metal fans obsess over (thanks a lot, Rhapsody).  There are moments of true poetic focus, such as the minstrelized "A Past and Future Secret" and the perfectly placed grand finale, "And the Story Ends."  And melodically speaking (which is most important for the so-called subgenre "melodic power metal"), most of these songs fall into the best of Blind Guardians melodies, along with the majority of their near equal follow-up, Nightfall in Middle-Earth.  But the edge this album has on Nightfall IS in fact edge itself.  Nightfall pioneered the symphonic sound by sacrificing most of the speed edge, so it sets up a new era of Blind Guardian, forsaking the speed until the singles for 2022's The God Machine was released.

Imaginations provides the ultimate Blind Guardian experience, perfectly balancing the best of both worlds in the best of all ways.  Key tracks like the title (my personal favorite power metal song), "Bright Eyes" and "The Script for My Requiem" may be among the best BG songs, but there is no such thing as filler on this masterpiece.  With Imaginations from the Other Side, Blind Guardian proved that they could stand with the greats like Helloween and Running Wild, and that the brilliant Somewhere Far Beyond wasn't a one-time success or a fluke.  This is the peak of power metal.

There was a time when I just wasn't into this album, going as far as to consider it heavily bloated and a little too thrashy.  Maybe I just wasn't into thrash at the time.  I had to take some time to get used to heavier metal, and eventually I did.  At that point, this was my number 1 Metallica album for a while.  But I always felt this itching feeling like I was overrating it a little.  At this point, I've come to accept Ride the Lightning as the better Metallica album because despite the fact that Metallica's style had fully matured during MoP, RtL was the better METAL album.

Master of Puppets is a lot like a companion piece to Ride the Lightning.  Both albums start out with a moody acoustic melody, but I'd give the edge on the intro to MoP.  "Battery" might not be as heavy as "Fight Fire With Fire" (although that's a high bar for heaviness), but the songwriting is improved, and the melody is catchier.  The title track is probably Metallica's crowning achievement, because its level of poetry and melody, as well as the progressive nature that would define many songs of MoP and In Justice for All, were all at their creative peak.  The album shifts from thrash metal monstrosities to slow and doomy songs which may evolve into eruptions, thus bridging the gap between thrash metal and 890's heavy metal akin to the level of brutality displayed on Iron Maiden albums of the time.  But Metallica were a little more Gothic.  After two thrashers and two songs bridging the gap between the two genres (and ending with a prog influence akin to RtL's "Fade to Black), the album gets right back to thrashing with "Desposible Heroes," continuing this theme with the weakest song, "Leper Messiah," similarly to how RtL continued the thrashing with "Trapped Under Ice" and the album's weakest song, "Escape."  And finally, the proggy nature of the final two tracks on each album end it with bursts of creativity that act as proper finales, with the only difference being that the seventh song and the ending instrumental of RtL have their album positions switched on MoP.

The album's darker tone and cleaner production are part of the reason metal maniacs have accepted this as a contender for the finest metal album ever made, but I still feel that it's slightly bloated in comparison to RtL.  But the dark vibe, incredible lyrics and pefect melodies are so addicting that the replay value of this album surpasses many other metal albums.  You could play this twice in a row and not get tired.  This is one of thrash metal's finest achievements, and proved to the world that Metallica were the next true artists, and that brutally heavy metal has a purpose.

In my younger days, like many other young peeps, my knowledge of Metallica was practically limited to The Black Album and a couple of singles from the earlier days like “Master of Puppets” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”  I wasn't fully in tune with thrash.  Well as I got more in-tune with thrash I had Master of Puppets ranked as the number 1 metal album of all time.  But I didn't put in in my top 20 despite how much I love metal because I always considered it a little bit bloated.  Well after a lot of personal growth and re-evaluation of my life, I also re-evaluated how I rate some music, especially metal.

At first I was NOT willing to give Ride the Lightning a spot above Master of Puppets (I even had And Justice for All ranked above it).  Why?  Simple.  Puppets' production is much cleaner, the rhythms are more developed and progressive, and Metallica's style fully matured.  After re-assessing myself, I realized that the big question was not “What's the best Metallica album,” but “what's the best METAL album?”  If my metalcore phase taught me anything, it's that any type of production is acceptable depending on the situation.  Let's be honest.  Ride the Lightning's production but not be as clear as that of Puppet's, but it really is way more metallic.  They obviously came a long way in that short one-year time when the were one of the best up-and-coming metal acts playing typical early thrash, and became the very band that defined thrash.

Believe it or not, my first encounter with Metallica's “Fight Fire with Fire” was not a pleasant one.  Before I was used to the idea of thrash metal (or even heard of it for that matter), I would originally type the name in to look for a Kansas song.  I wouldn't hear the actual album until four years later when I first started exploring music forums and charts.  It would take a few years more for me to grow fully accustomed to the harshest side of metal, and that included death metal and black metal.  I have Symbolic by Death to thank for that.  It was the first death metal album I had ever heard and I gave it a 100/100 right then and there.  The whole point of making this the opener is to give you an idea of how much power your exposing yourself to.  By the time you're done with the album, you'll already be glowing blue. Da ba dee.  I mean, after that soothing guitar solo at the beginning, you're dealing with BOOM BOOM BOOM!  They don't call it “Ride the Lightning” for nothing!  The way that atmosphere in the production works just makes it more metallic!  Sure, the intro to the opener isn't as good as the one from Puppets, but it's overall a better song than “Battery.”

I admit, I'm not so well emotionally connected to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” as many other Metallica fans are, but I'm not denying that it's one of the high points of an album loaded with high points.  Taking a literally dramatic shift from the thrashing thunder of the gods, the early stages of the poetry that would be seen on Master of Puppets drives this song as much as the heavy metal melody.  “Take a look to the sky just before you die, It is the last time you will.  Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky, shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry.”  Edgar Allen Poe's getting owned here.  Screw the talking raven (OK, that's my screamo band name).  Much of Metallica's best "guitartistry" is boasted on “For whom the Bell Tolls,” each player doing their part to add their unique vibe to the aura and all work as well as any harmonized group while still being very creative.

Now we get to the crown jewel of Metallica's songs: “Fade to Black.”  This was Metallica's first ballad, and it was recorded at a time when James Hetfield not only had some obsession with death, but had to deal with much of the band's equipment being STOLEN, including his favorite Marshall amp!  Damn.  As you can imagine, that helps set the mood for one of Metallica's most iconic songs.  The poetry of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” continues as one of the most beautiful and emotional moods in all of power ballad history ends side B of this album.  There's no need for crazy solos when you can feel the sadness touching you.  How human can a song get?  It does get heavier towards the end, but that's a Metallica staple right there.  That doesn't stop Hetfield from delivering some of his most heartfelt vocals in his career.

Alright, the first half of side B is considered the weak point of Ride the Lightning, but what album doesn't have a weakness?  I admit, I'm not in love with the intro to “Trapped Under Ice.”  It slowly gets better until WEEDLY-WEEDLY-WEEDLY comes along, returning to the raw thunder of the first two songs!  Even though it's more like one of the basic thrash songs like on Kill 'Em All, the Ride the Lightning energy is still there, never damaging the album's flow or consistency.  I mean, come on.  Is speed metal not the perfect subgenre to feature on a thrash album?  Besides, for a song about literally being trapped under ice, the lyrics are really freakin' good.  The song almost feels crossover-thrash-esque the way it rides on energy and quick reactions.

“Escape” is considered the worst song on the album, but I like the intro more than I like the intro of “Trapped Under Ice.”  It's more rhythmic and true to the Metallica style.  I think the problem here is that it's written more like a song from your average hard rock / heavy metal album instead of one of the first thrash albums.  Maybe that actually works, considering that the roots of thrash come from acts like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.  Hell, I wouldn't mind a good Scorps cover.  Besides, the song still rules overall.  The solos are still great and the lyrics are still human and relatable.

“Creeping Death” is one that I find particularly interesting because of its lyrical content.  As opposed to the satanism often showing in albums at that time, Metallica decided to write a song about the Angel of Death from the book of Exodus!  Well, you gotta keep the concept strong somehow.  Although the song is more formulaic to the thrash stereotype, the badassery is at its peak.  “Creeping Death” is balanced out between Metallica's energy, sense of rhythm, and lyrical drive.  Unlike every other song on the album, it doesn't rely on solos to make its mark because of its balance.

“The Call of Ktulu” is the closer, and the only instrumental on the album.  This nearly nine-minute epic pretty much covers everything that was going on throughout the album but with a deeper sense of mystery than every other song.  Starting out with that slightly creepy solo was the perfect way to go.  Like other prog-infused epics of its time, it slowly gets heavier and relies on a clever collection of combined solos to make its mark on the album.  I don't know about you, but I think that's a perfectly epic way to end such an incredible album.

It's so utterly weird when you finally catch on to why an album is so great, because a whole new world opens afterwards.  Ride the Lightning opened up a whole new level of understanding in the world of thrash (and maybe metal) for me, and I plan on making the most of it.  In my opinion, it's the single greatest example of metal in the world.  It's atmosphere is flawless, the energy of the album is rivaled only by a select few like Pleasure to Kill by Kreator, and the theme and concept never suffer.  In fact, Ride the Lightning is much better at delivering its concept (of death and humanity) than most albums are at delivering their own concepts.  It goes without saying that Ride the Lightning is an indisputable essential for any metal collection, and I'm glad I love the album as much as I do now.