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Comment by PowerWyrm 2 months ago
Hymn to the Immortal Wind 2009 by Mono Brilliant. Beautiful. Would have been perfect with better production... Comment by PowerWyrm 2 months ago
Part the Second 2009 by Maudlin of the Well An awesome album. Somewhere between old MotW and Kayo Dot, but without harsh vocals... and it can be downloaded for free!!! Comment by PowerWyrm 2 months ago
Comment by PowerWyrm 3 months ago
Black Gives Way to Blue 2009 by Alice in Chains Almost 15 years waiting for this album... and it was well worth the wait!
Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us 2009 by Paradise Lost A disappointment. Still a good album, but... Since the last two albums, Paradise Lost left the catchy and almost poppish hits for a return to the dark/doom of their beginnings. Back to the roots... just like many other bands nowadays (Metallica, Megadeth...). At first listening, it seems they tried to do another Draconian Times (the first song really sounds like "Enchantment"... and the ninth song revisits "Once Solemn"), but unfortunately it is without the majesty (and the insane production!) of that album. The result is something closer to "Shades of God"... an album without real direction, with a mix of light and heavy melodies, catchy and depressive, with really mellow and (almost) harsh vocals (but no growls like on the first two albums fortunately...) Rest the title track... probably the best song they ever wrote... Comment by PowerWyrm 6 months ago
The West Pole 2009 by The Gathering A very nice surprise... New lead singer, but same musical style, with more rock oriented compositions. Comment by PowerWyrm 6 months ago
The Devil You Know 2009 by Heaven and Hell I can't believe it's been 17 years since Dehumanizer... I was expecting something in the same vein, fast and extremely heavy, well this stuff is heavy for sure... but it's slow and heavy. Doom metal at its best... Comment by PowerWyrm 9 months ago
Death Magic Doom 2009 by Candlemass After listening to "Lucifer Rising" and the first song, "If I Ever Die", I thought Candlemass would put up a more aggressive and up tempo album. I was wrong. This is as doomy and gloomy as usual, with long, dark... and slow songs, yet very heavy. Another masterpiece... Comment by PowerWyrm 10 months ago
For Lies I Sire 2009 by My Dying Bride This is a gorgeous album. "The Angel And The Dark River" comes to mind as a comparison. Almost no death vocals (well they're all concentrated on one track, "A Chapter In Loathing", which can be seen as the heaviest song the band has done since their first album), depressive melodies, and even the violin is back on most of the songs, like in the old times. Comment by PowerWyrm 11 months ago
Comment by PowerWyrm 11 months ago
Hordes of Chaos 2009 by Kreator Kreator are back to their roots with this very aggressive release, in the vein of "Coma of Souls". Comment by PowerWyrm 11 months ago
Archangels In Black 2009 by Adagio This time the band took a step back and added less harsh vocals to their still recognizable sound. A strong release, but still miles away from their first two albums.
Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder 2008 by Cradle of Filth After the insipid "Thornography", Cradle Of Filth are back to their mid-period dark metal: this release sounds a lot like "Midian" or "Damnation and a Day". More operatic, epic and venomous as ever, the band delivers classic black metal, with the return of the orchestral interludes, choir, female backing vocals, spoken parts... if only the lead singer knew how to sing it would have been a great release, unfortunately the only thing that never changes is the horrible shrieked male vocals. Comment by PowerWyrm
Tératologie 2007 by Eths A very interesting band... Typical extreme metal, blending heavy riffing with dark melodic passages. The vocals are the usual mix of clean vocals/growls, but the originality here is that not only the band is female fronted and that the lead singer sings in french... but she also does the growls.
Music For Pictures 2008, OST by Trey Gunn A compilation of instrumental tunes written for side projects... close to what has been done by Asia for their "Rare" release. Some main themes seem to show out of this quite messy release (corn field, forest, sea), and it would have been great if those were grouped in some way (more info provided about the "multi-media scoring work" would have been great too, info which was present on the "Rare Asia" release for example). Most of the stuff here sounds a lot like TG's old work in King Crimson or the ProjeKcts, with him doing all the guitar/bass work and adding some keyboards, scarce (backing) vocals and different drummers. Overall it's a very enjoyable album that can be listened from start to end without bothering about song names, with one major exception: the pointless last track. While all other tunes range in the 1-3 minutes mark, the last instrumental lasts more than 20 minutes. And it cannot even be called music: imagine someone making some piece of chalk squeek on a black board... that's nothing compared to the torture of listening to that track... and it lasts 20 minutes! Comment by PowerWyrm
Hindsight 2008, Comp by Anathema After my review of the last Michael Kiske album, this is roughly the same concept: old songs played acoustically. Again these are among my favorite Anathema songs, but again I prefer the original versions. Comment by PowerWyrm
Past In Different Ways 2008 by Michael Kiske An album consisting of songs written by Michael Kiske during the Helloween era and played acoustically. Though these are mostly my favorites songs from this era, the versions here aren't the same quality as the original versions... except maybe "Your Turn".
Epicon 2006 by Globus I don't know how I missed this gem when it was released two years ago... it's simply beautiful. Globus is a project from composer and producer Yoav Goren, turning cinematic and epic soundtracks into contemporary songs. The Epicon album blends classical music (Bach, Haendel, traditional songs...) with pop and rock elements, modern vocals, choir and a full piece orchestra. The result is simply brilliant.
Along Came A Spider 2008 by Alice Cooper This could have been a great concept album about the story of a serial killer fascinated by spiders... unfortunately neither the songs nor the music did make much impact on me. Musically the album sounds mostly like the early stuff (but without the unforgettable hits from the first albums), sometimes even like the albums from the early 80s (and who remembers those?). The use of multiple songwriters didn't help here and made the songs messy... and even the lyrics are uninspired. Clearly an album for fans only... |
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