Sabaton's New Album "Heroes" Out In May

Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton unveiled two artworks and tracklist of their new album "Heroes".
The new album will be out on 16th of May.

The album is described by the reviewers as "really well produced, arranged, energetic and melodic. Each song is different, begins with an unusual, catchy motive and gives the impression of participation on something bigger, than only another good heavy metal experience."

Tracklist:

1. Night Witches
2. No Bullets Fly
3. Smoking Snakes
4. Inmate 4859
5. To Hell And Back
6. The Ballad of Bull
7. Resist And Bite
8. Soldier of 3 Armies
9. Far From the Fame
10. Hearts of Iron

Official Trailer

Gig reviews: Katatonia live at O2 Islington Academy, 10 December 2012

Katatonia has always been on my ‘must see list'. Swedish alternative metal band performed on 10 December at O2 Islington Academy in London. I’ve been Katatonia’s fan since 2006, when I accidentally discovered them on MySpace.The first song I heard was ‘Dissolving Bonds’ and still remains one of my favourite Katatonia’s songs.

I have never heard of Katatonia’s support bands before. American rockers Junius were first to go on the stage and played 6 songs. I was positively surprised by this band and already ordered their latest album 'Reports From the Threshold of Death'. The only little disappointment was the inability to hear Joseph properly. Guitars and drums were too loud. So thanks to Junius and my own idiocy it's still ringing in my left ear. And I'm writing this after 10 days.  Here's my favourite song 'Betray the Grave'.

About 15 minutes later French Alcest were ready to play. Again, I had no idea what to expect from them and when 2 girls standing next to me asked if I don't mind to swop my place with them because they want to see Neige better, I didn't object. As Junius also Alcest played 6 songs and after 30 minutes they packed their stuff and left the stage. I must admit their songs didn't really make a big impression on me and the only song I checked later on is 'Percées De Lumière’.

As girls promised after Alcest finished, we swopped our places again. About 21:20 Katatonia came on the stage. They started with the song 'The Parting' from their latest album 'Dead End Kings'. I didn't check their setlist on setlist.fm so I had no idea, which songs will be performed that night. To my pleasure, boys didn't forget that they released some albums 8 years ago, as some bands play songs from their last 3 or 4 albums only, sometimes not even that, and included songs from almost every album they have released so far. Jonas sounded great the entire gig. Also I could hear him much better than Joseph and Neige. I was really surprised that although being on tour since November and playing almost 2 month in row, Jonas sounded exactly like on the CDs. A huge thumbs up from me, for sure. Anders, Per and Niklas were running around like mad. So good to see everyone had a blast. The highlights of the evening were my all-time favourite songs 'Omerta', 'Ghost Of the Sun' and 'Strained'.

All in all, it was a bloody brilliant night. Before I left my house I read on FB that the gig was officially sold out. Although, sold out means only 220 'people in the house, in this case it felt like there were thousands of us. Thank You Katatonia for great evening and see you as soon as possible!

Setlist:

 1. The Parting

 2. Buildings

 3. Deliberation

 4. My Twin

 5. Burn the Remembrance

 6. The Racing Heart

 7. Lethean

 8. Teargas

 9. Strained

10. The Longest Year

11. Soil's Song

12. Omerta

13. Sweet Nurse

14. Dead House

15. Ghost Of the Sun

16. July

17. Day and Then the Shade

Encore:

18. Dead Letters

19. Forsaken

20. Leaders

Some news

1. Nightwish’s  "Imaginaerum" film will be done with mostly Canadian actors/actresses. Post-production will take place in Canada and Finland. The names of the actors who have two of the main roles in the film are Marianne Farley and Quinn Lord. Behind the scene photo gallery.

2. Sonata Arctica changed release date   of the new  DVD "Live in Finland". The DVD will be released November 11th, Europe and November 15, North America. Teaser can be found here.                        

3. Delain completed the songwriting process for its third studio album, which will be released in the spring 2012. Videos from the studio can be seen here.

4. Opeth released the official music video of their first single "The Devil Orchard" from the new album "Heritage".

5. Evanescence's new song "Made of Stone" with lyrics is now avaible for streaming on their official site.

Opeth's new single The Devil's Orchard

The Devil's Orchard is a new single from Opeth's 10th album "Heritage". This album will be the last recording with Per Wiberg as the keyboardist because he is leaving the band as part of a mutual decision. Joakim Svalberg, new keyboardist, is already rehearsing with the band. Here you can find album artwork and track listing.

CD Review: In Flames' Sounds of a Playground Fading

On February 4th, 2010, long time In Flames guitarist (and early drummer) Jesper Strömblad made the decision to quit the band due to personal and health issues. Being with In Flames since the very beginning while losing his presence will sure make an impact in the future for the long time Swedish metal band. But of course, the band had to move on, and in 2011 with Björn Gelotte as their lead guitarist now along their newest addition on guitar Niclas Englin, the group released their new album Sounds of a Playground Fading, the first In Flames album to not feature Jesper on any instrument in their music.



As many know about this band, the original melodic death metal sound the band had back in the 90’s slowly dwindled away and went for a more modern, alternative metal approach to their sound recently, thus dividing their fan base in half. I happen to really like their original sound as well, but I understand that nothing stays the same forever. As I mention all the time with my reviews, bands evolve and it sometimes isn‘t for the better. In this case, In Flames were able to be more successful in some regard but only to lose a lot of what they used to be. One of the biggest problems right now is Anders Fridén attempting clean vocals. Honestly, he sounded amazing back on albums like The Jester Race and Whoracle when he used to just growl practically the whole time, but now he sounds too whiny and I personally don’t think he has that great of a clean voice. So after four mediocre to poor albums, could In Flames be able to change an old fan’s mind with this release? Well, let’s find out with my song by song review:

1. “Sounds of a Playground Fading”: The title track. To be honest, I think the intro to this song is one of the best this band has done in years. I really adore the clean guitar intro along with their trademark dual guitar harmonies that made them the band they are today. After the intro, it goes into a typical modern In Flames song with Anders putting out his usual vocal style we all are used to by now. While the rest of the song isn’t as impressive as the intro, it still has something to offer and it still retains the melodic approach that this band got famous for. 3.5/5

2. “Deliver Us”: The first single off this album. This was obviously written to be a radio hit because Anders’ vocals are clean the whole time, which isn’t always the best thing and the song overall is very dull and lacks substance with a typical song structure suited for a hit song. Listen at your own risk. 2/5

3. “All For Me”: This song has once again another acoustic intro with that typical In Flames style to it. Though not as impressive as the title track, it holds it own nonetheless. The rest of the song? I would say that it is a very depressing track with Anders adding some very desperate sounding vocals of pain, which he actually does good at for this song. His vocals actually fit this one quite well unlike most of the other tracks. I think that is a song worth listening to a couple of times but don‘t expect “Moonshield“ or anything like that. 3/5

4. “The Puzzle”: This is the fastest song on the album, but does that mean it’s good? Out of all the songs, Anders vocals are the most annoying on this track, especially in the verses. Musically, it isn’t too bad, but nothing special either. Although the outro of this song is actually very cool and is actually worth skipping the whole song up until that point, which is why I gave it a higher rating. 2.5/5

5. “Fear Is the Weakness”: I really like this song musically, but I feel that Anders sort of ruins it for me again, which seems to be a continuing problem for this album. I really like the guitar work on this track as it has more presence than the previous tracks. Worth a listen for sure but once again it could be better. 3.5/5

6. “Where the Dead Ships Dwell”: Another attempt at a radio friendly song. I feel that this song is really stock and doesn’t do a lot for me at all. One of the weaker songs on the album, that is all I am going to say about this one. 2/5

7. “The Attic”: A very weird and acoustic guitar song with some raspy vocals from Anders once again which sort of kills it. I don’t think this is the worst song on the album, but it doesn’t have much lasting appeal either. 2.5/5

8. “Darker Times”: The main riff sounds very Korn like to me and with that being the case, this is definitely a filler track. Nothing special here. 2/5

9. “Ropes”: A very good main guitar lick, but Anders vocals ruins the song again. I think the guitar work on this track is pretty good though. Not that great of a song again as it is another filler once again. 2.5/5

10. “Enter Tragedy”: Faster than most of the other tracks, the vocals are surprisingly a little more harsh than the other songs, but it comes off as too whiny and forced once again which ruins the whole song. 2/5

11. “Jester’s Door”: I think this track is about Jesper Strömblad judging by the lyrics. I don’t know what to say about this one other than it is a weird track with basically a narration going on. Ugh, worth maybe one listen but that is it. I don’t consider this really a song so it gets a pretty low rating. 1/5

12. “A New Dawn”: After one of the worst tracks in the bands’ history, we get to the best song on the album. The guitars seem to have more inspiration, the structure is more complex, and the overall feel of the song is much more powerful and has better execution than the rest of the album. Anders vocals aren’t that good as usual, but here he sounds better than the other tracks. The bridge section of this song has some strings in it which gives it a very nice melodic touch to it. I don’t know how they will reproduce this live unless it is played over the PA or if they have enough money to afford session violin players. Anyways, this is by far the best this album has to offer. 4/5

13. “Liberation”: Really?? After the best song we get this one? Reminds me of some radio rock song. Sounds nothing like In Flames at all! Another filler track. 2/5


So that is my song by song review of Sounds of a Playground Fading. Here are my overall thoughts:

Pros:

- A significant improvement over A Sense of Purpose.

- Very good melodic intros to some songs.


Cons:

- Anders’ vocals

- Lyrics are a bit whiny and corny at times, although much better than their last album.

- A lot of filler tracks which makes it inconsistent.

To me, In Flames sounds tired and worn down and the album grows very old after a while. I think this band has seen better days and while I think that they really tried to make some memorable songs like “A New Dawn”, it doesn’t sound like the band has anymore ideas left in the tank. Their overall sound seems like it is growing old and tiresome, and that they are getting bored of making this kind of metal in general. But despite the setbacks, there are some positives to this release. You would think that Jesper’s absence would have a big impact on the overall sound, but Björn fit the shoes of lead guitar nicely with some very cool and unique solos to the In Flames library. I don’t think it would have made a difference either way if Jesper would of stayed or not because this album would not have sounded that much different in my opinion.

Fans of old In Flames, like myself, have to realize that they will never be the band they once were. Being true melodic death metal again for this band isn’t going to happen anytime soon. It is what it is, and since it is a more modern In Flames album, I would put this one quality wise above Soundtrack To Your Escape and A Sense of Purpose. But even though it is an improvement, I will still have to give this album a horns down /w\ due to the inconstancies this album has plus the annoying sound of Anders’ modern vocal sound which he started utilizing since Reroute To Remain. Of course if you like their new sound and style, pick this album up as there are some nice aspects about this album. It isn’t all bad, but I really do miss the old style this band once possessed.

Overall rating: 2.5/5

Pain's new single

The second single from the new album You Only Live Twice is out now. After the first single Dirty Woman, Pain came up with a single called The Great Pretender.
I think the song itself is ok. Yet I would like to meet the person who came up with the idea of this video. Giant bunny, cow, gorilla with bananas and carrots.

Heritage by Opeth

Couple of days ago, Swedish progressive metal band Opeth announced the track list and cover artwork of their tenth album  Heritage. The album will be released on 20 September via Roadrunner Records and also will be released as a standard version, as a special edition with extra stuff, as a box set exclusive to the Roadrunner and the band's own official Omerch webstore and as a double LP. Vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt described Heritage as  ''quite intense at times in some 'old' murky way, and quite beautiful and stark at times''. 



The track list:
 1. Heritage
 2. The Devil's Orchard
 3. I Feel The Dark
 4. Slither
 5. Nepenthe
 6. Haxprocess
 7. Famine
 8. The Lines In My Hand
 9. Folklore
10. Marrow Of The Earth

Sabaton's New Video: "Screaming Eagles"

Fresh off the press!  And it's a great video, too.  I thought it was very well done.



I sent this to my friend who is accompanying me to the gig in Vancouver in October just to give her a taste of what to expect...Should be interesting!

CD Review: One Without's "Sweet Relief"

I stumbled upon a pretty nifty metal blog recently called Black Wind Metal, and since reading it, I've got a running list of bands I need to check out. After reading this review of Swedish metalers' One Without's release, Sweet Relief, I was intrigued enough to check them out, the prospect made even more appealing by the availability of a free download on the band's site and their Last.fm page.

This band has been around for quite a while in various incarnations since 2003, and Sweet Release is their fourth release.

I listened to the album for the first time yesterday after spending a considerable amount of time with Amaranthe, and my perception of it might have been coloured at the time because I had listened to too many growling male vocals already and I was starting to get a headache. Overall, my first impression was that it wasn't my cup of tea, mainly because of all the growling.

Upon a second listen, my impression hasn't changed much. There are a lot of pluses going on in this album for sure. Musically, it's aggressive, heavy, and tight. The compositions aren't bad and there is some great guitar work along with some cool synth elements I kind of liked. The pace of the individual songs was good.

The intros to their songs are all very strong, and the opening track, "Hunger" is a great example of this.

But after the intros I found things lacking. Apart from the growls, I didn't find female vocalist Catrin Feymark's vocals really captured my heart or imagination. She doesn't have a lot of range and the songs all to me had a monotonous sound to them because of this. While I don't think she's a bad vocalist, once again, I feel that here is a metal band with a female singer not suited well for the music. Because of her lack of vocal chops (at least evidenced in this release), the songs eventually wound up sounding the same to me after a while. This is a shame because there is a lot of heavy shit in here and some really strong elements. Stronger songs are the aforementioned "Hunger" and "Pretender."

What's unusual about this album is its length: it contains 17 songs. As Space Kev said in his review, it was a tad long and some of it could have been cut out and released in another form. I agree with this assessment. Because of the sameness I felt pervaded all the songs, this was a bit of a slog to listen to, and by the second half I started to find myself bored and waiting for the end.

So, my overall feeling about this album is that it was just OK but not my cup of tea. I'm always open to listening to new stuff though and discovering new bands, so I appreciated Space Kev's review of Sweet Relief and the downloadability of the release.

Here is One Without's video for "Pretender" which was just released today.

CD Review: Amaranthe's Self-titled Album

I've seen an awful lot of buzz on the internet about Amaranthe since they recently released this new self-titled CD, so my curiousity was piqued, even though I have listened to some of their ealier stuff from their demo and didn't think too much of it. If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I am not overly fond of growls, but you'll also know that I don't mind them in some instances (Crimfall, Epica, Dawn of Destiny) if they are executed in a way that isn't overbearing or in a way that enhances the music rather than takes from it. Amaranthe's growls fall into the latter category, so I didn't give them much thought after the initial listen because the music just didn't do it for me.

With the release of the full-lengthed CD Amaranthe and the accompanying promo and aforementioned buzz, most of which in my reading was positive, I decided to give this young band another go. Hailing from Denmark and Sweden and containing no fewer than three vocalists, there is no doubt that this band has energy and talent, something that their label, Spinefarm Records, no doubt was attracted to. But after two listens to this CD, I can't help but feel the hype is slightly misplaced.

Bear in mind that I'm old, all right?

No question this is a quality album with slick production. Sound-wise it's great. But my first impression after the first listen was "man, this is poppy." Now, I'm not one of those elitist metal snobs who uses the term "poppy" when referring to metal with derision. I like my fair share of poppier metal for sure, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it in general. But even I have my limits and Amaranthe really tested them.

For one thing, the three vocalists is a bit much. There are two clean vocalists, a male, Jake, and a female, Elize, and the growler, Andy. Individually, they are all strong singers, but as a trio they sound a bit bizarre. For instance, Jake sounds like he belongs in a 1990s boy band, and combined with Elize's notably strong voice (she reminds me of Anette Olzon sometimes) they sound together like a typical pop duo you'd hear on any old radio station. When you throw in the growls, it just sounds like they added that element to add some "brutality" to their sound just to give them some street cred. I don't think it works.

Writing-wise, there is nothing mindblowing here at all. The song structures are simple and are certainly pop-influenced to my ear. Most of their songs are in the low 3-minute range, with only two above the 4-minute mark. The most complex song is "Director's Cut" which is pretty decent, but like I said, not terribly mindblowing. The songs are fast and heavy and I like that about them, but the music overall isn't very complex or interesting. There are a lot of techno elements in here, too, and I'm on the fence about how I feel about them. Lyrically, the songs are pretty average, with some typical Gothic overtones. But remember I'm old, right? To my mind, they lyrics tend towards the slightly emo-ish, and that does nothing for me.

I did see on Last.fm that this band has been tagged as "pop metal" and there is a good wiki there with a definition of this term:

The term is used to reference bands within the heavy metal music subgenres that perform more accessible forms of metal, most notably nu metal, glam metal, and metalcore, due to the heavy usage of techniques used in pop music that permeate bands within these genres.

"Accessible" is a good descriptor for Amaranthe.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, and despite all of what I said above, I did enjoy this album for what it was, which was fun, fast, and catchy. Songs I particularly enjoyed were "Amaranthine", "Leave Everything Behind", "Hunger", and "Automatic." "Amaranthine" is the pinnacle of poppiness in this album, too, by the way, but I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless. They look like they are set to succeed with not only the label they've signed to, but because they are touring with Kamelot.

All told, I'm on the fence about Amaranthe. While I enjoyed parts of this album, I'm not sure they're all they're cracked up to be. But that's just me and my two cents. I will say that I'm liking this stuff better than anything Sirenia has put out lately.

But damn is "Amaranthine" catchy!

Here are some samples for you. The single "Hunger" has a pretty sleek video.

EDIT: there is a great, scathing review of this album here that I totally enjoyed, along with the accompanying comments. It's defintely worth a read!

Olle Ekman's Death Metal Warm-ups

If you're Canadian, you no doubt know who George Stroumboulopoulos is. We call him Strombo for short, and some of us have huge crushes on him. He has a national radio show and is a known music geek and former VJ for MuchMusic. He also has a popular TV show on our national network CBC. Anyway, this video was in his Facebook feed today and I thought it was worth reposting here because it's really quite fascinating. Here is the original post on George's CBC site.

Here is the video on YT of death metal vocalist Olle Ekman's vocal warm-up. Now, I'm not the biggest DM fan in the world, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of watching this. Olle sings for Swedish bands Volturyon and Deals Death.



Enjoy!

Deliver Us by In Flames

Deliver Us is a new single from Swedish metallers. The track is from their new album "Sounds Of A Playground Fading" which will be released on 17 June. The track will be released on 7 May. This album will be the first one without founding guitarist Jesper Strömblad, who quit the band in February 2010 in order to continue receiving treatment for his alcohol addiction. The new second guitarist will be Niclas Engelin from Swedish band Engel.

Here is the track list:
01. Sounds Of A Playground Fading
02. Deliver Us
03. All For Me
04. The Puzzle
05. Fear Is The Weakness
06. Where The Dead Ships Dwell
07. The Attic
08. Darker Times
09. Ropes
10. Enter Tragedy
                                                      11. Jester's Door
                                                      12. A New Dawn
                                                      13. Liberation

You can hear 1 minute preview from Deliver Us single (the quality is not the best)

EDIT: Here is the full song

Pain's new single

If you happen to be a fan of Swedish industrial metal band Pain, you can listen now to their new single "Dirty Woman" from the upcoming album "You Only Live Twice" which will be released on 3rd June via Nuclear Blast.

Sabaton's Uprising

Here it is! I love it!


Sabaton - Uprising (2010)

Sabaton | MySpace Music Videos

Therion vocalist Snowy Shaw calls it quits

Some news in the symphonic metal world. Vocalist Snowy Shaw has quit the band Therion after only two studio albums in the four years he has been with the group.

"I've had a terrific and great time touring and working with THERION and I do wish them nothing but the best in the future, but I've felt for some time that it's time for me to move on," Snowy told BLABBERMOUTH.NET. "I also wanna take the opportunity to show my gratitude and thank all the loyal fans for their support, love and understanding." -quote from Blabbermouth.net

You can view the main article here.