The Batlord

I'm mainly talking about punk and garage rock bands.

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Plankton

I thought I saw some smoke over on this side of the forum. Crankin this one back up ey. Smells like some dry rotted gaskets, but at least she fired back up. Good deal. I'm working on putting together a new album from the tunes I've done since this thread started. Some originals, some using backing tracks. It's mostly an easy listening type of thing with really no metal influence whatsoever. I may have it done by the new year. I'll throw it in the mix if you have room.

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Trollheart

Always room for you, my friend.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

I have to be honest: Mondo scares me. Not as a person (that I'm aware of anyway) but as a musician. He scares me in a sort of pseudo-Frownland way, in that I look at the running times on his albums and they're almost always massive. Here, I see songs that run for fifteen minutes, nineteen minutes... I mean, I'm sure/I hope the music is good and something I can relate to and review and also hopefully enjoy, but nearly twenty minutes a track is stretching it, even for a prog head like me who is used to such things. Like I said in my recent review in my prog journal, a long epic song is almost the staple of prog, but it all depends on how it's executed. It can be a triumph, where the song goes by so quickly you don't realise it and are still left wanting more at the end, or it can be an excruciating ordeal that you wish would just for the love of Satan and and his little wizards come to a close and release you from its horrible clutches.

I know once people get composing it's often hard to restrict the time of a track, I do know and sympathise with this. But sometimes shorter is better, and certainly easier to review. That said, perhaps I'll be like I was after hearing “Supper's ready” or “Grendel” or “A plague of lighthouse keepers” for the first time, and wish there was more. But I fear that one way or the other, this may be something of a struggle. However, moaning about it won't make the record any shorter, so let's dive in and see what we have to work with.

Rejsekammerat – Trouble Salad (Mondo Bungle)

I should also apologise to Mondo, as I originally agreed to review this, well, let's just say some time ago, but my absence from the forum has meant he has had to wait longer than he should have. As have those of you who had submissions in during and before 2015, so my apologies to you all. I'll try to get through these as fast as I can, without rushing anyone's album, if that makes sense. I have no idea what the title means, but suspect it's German or Danish or Norwegian, probably linked in with Vikings in some way. Possibly.

Okay, we open on “Cryoseism”, and already I'm impressed. This is like a church organ sound with wind effects and then some sort of almost otherworldly synth line wafting along it like a gust of gentle air. Mind you, the two synths are slightly out of tune with each other – which I'm sure is intentional – giving a vaguely discordant and even threatening sound to the music. That much aside though, it is really nice. More or less continuing in this basic vein until about three minutes in, when some new elements make their way into the melody, and the two discordant synths kind of come together; it's not quite as jarring now, almost like two harmonics which have reached the same pitch (do I know what I'm talking about? Sounds like I do, but I'm not sure) and suddenly merge into one sound. Now the second synth has disappeared to be replaced shortly afterwards by a darker one, the melody altering a little now and taking us into the fifth of the seven minutes this runs for. It's overall both relaxing and a little disquieting, which is a rare feat for a musician to accomplish.

Very interestingly, the next track is a cover. Indeed, it's a track that appears on one of the many demos of Swiss Ambient/Black Metal band Paysage d'Hiver's Kristall & Isa, released in 2000. However, whereas the original track is about six minutes long Mondo's version runs to over ten, so has he overstretched it? Well, it's basically one long drone sequence. Now, I've never really been able to get into drone but I've heard some good things and I did enjoy Paysage d'Hiver's self-titled album when I reviewed it in Metal Month III, and this is certainly atmospheric. I'm sure musicians would be better able to appreciate all the nuances and sounds and instruments and loops used in this piece; I can't tell you what tools Mondo is using, and essentially it kind of all sounds much the same to me all the way through, but it's a good same, if you understand me. Something like this probably has to be stretched and dragged out for it to achieve the proper effect; a few minutes wouldn't allow the tone or the mood to develop sufficiently. Maybe. I'm sure there are a lot of – what do you guys call them? Textures? Yeah, textures in here, but to me it's just one long drone, but a very powerful and effective one. Certainly gives a cold, lonely feeling of isolation and possibly approaching but unknown danger out of the mists. Cool. Not entirely sure why it needed to be longer than the original, though.

“Mountain village” is a really spooky, eerie little piece with a repeating pattern that gets right under your skin and the kind of dark synth that seems like it's coming to slit your throat. It's also by far the shortest track, at less than three minutes. An equally spooky piano and organ (?) carry us into “Should you need a travelling companion”, with those wind sounds from the opener back in evidence, and there's really a very nice melody about it. It's almost like a musical box. Kind of. Could hear this playing in one of those Chucky movies or something, you know the kind of thing, Baby Button Eyes or whatever, about cursed dolls or kids or both, kind of thing that would play in the nursery as their eyes turned red. Or green maybe. I like this one a lot I have to say.

The last of the short-ish tracks, “Snowhead Temple” has dark ambient weather effects, not quite thunder but rumbling and wind (shut up) and then a kind of whistling sound with what might be birds cawing in the distance? Not too sure; as with all ambient music, I'm never quite certain if I'm hearing sounds on the album or outside my window, though it is night here so probably no birds outside. No actual music here, per se, though there's a certain rhythm even without any percussion; kind of like listening to the weather making music. But here's where things begin to get either interesting or annoying, as we hit the nineteen-minuter on this album, with another fifteen-minute track before it closes.

“Watcher on the summit” starts with a screechy sort of effect and some dark synth I guess, feedback presumably, conjuring up, for me anyway, the idea of something waiting in the dark to take you. There's a great sense of space and expanse in the music, almost like someone is taking it and physically stretching it out, making it thinner and thinner as it stretches, till it almost, but not quite, breaks. I would hope there will be more than this in the tune though, as nineteen minutes of only this is going to be hard to take. It was. Well, in general I wouldn't say I enjoyed it but I didn't hate it either. It kind of was the same thing though for just shy of twenty minutes, so again I'm not quite sure why it had to be so long. But it could have been worse certainly. Oddly enough, the main theme going through it reminded me strongly of the “white noise” that Homer tried to make for Marge when she was sleeping!

And that leaves us with the closer, another long one but not as long as “Watcher”. Not quite, anyway. “Shed a tear for winter's end” (great title!) only (!) runs for fifteen minutes and change. It opens as again a pretty existential abstract sort of thing, with dark humming drone noises and what sounds like violin or something quiet in the background, a rising synth line that wails over everything like a banshee drifting over a field of corpses. Mournful, desolate and an overall feeling of loss are the kinds of moods I get from this piece, which I guess ties in with the title. Sounds like someone laughing in the distance, and then there are frogs. Are there frogs? Surely there are frogs. And someone talking, presumably in German.Wow, look at that! Ten minutes in and it doesn't seem like half that time. Mondo certainly knows how to fill up a soundscape. That talking seems to have developed into a conversation between two or more people, but kept in the background, which is good, as it melds with and complements rather than takes over or distracts from the music. Fading out nicely now. Quite enjoyable. Is that a crow at the end? Nice primordial symbol of winter, if so.

TRACK LISTING AND RATINGS

1.Cryoseism
2. Der kristall ist eis
3. Mountain village
4. Should you need a travelling companion
5. Snowhead temple
6. Watcher on the summit
7. Shed a tear for winter's end

It should be pointed out and made clear that I avoided YorkeDaddy's review of this album, and have still not read it at time of posting, as I wanted to get my own impressions and make up my own mind about it, and I was and still am sure that his perspective as a fellow musician would be so much different – and probably more on the money – than mine. So I didn't want to copy his ideas and I didn't want to be influenced by them either. What has happened, then, is that I've come to these conclusions on my own, and they are these:

This album would be great to just listen to. For review purposes it's quite hard to tackle, as often the music seems – I emphasise seems – to go in the same direction with the same melody or structure, and I'm sure it deviates wildly if you're able to detect all the little compositional tricks you guys no doubt have up your sleeves. I, however, cannot, and for most of this review I was struggling to find things to say about it. Nevertheless, and given its length, on the basis of purely being an album that is enjoyable to listen to, it would score high with me. As a review, it was a bit of a slog, but I'm still glad I listened to it, and after my previous experience of Mondo's work (The Peaks of Thock or something) I now feel a lot easier and confident that I may enjoy his other works, and not dread them, as I somewhat was before listening to this.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Mondo Bungle

I couldn't tell ya how/why Watcher ended up being that long, but I just didn't do anything about it.

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Key

For whatever reason, either the mods deleted my post or never approved it, but here:


https://psychephilia.bandcamp.com/album/starboard

Trollheart

I'll add this to the list.

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Mondo Bungle

Tbh you should do the debut before the one I suggested https://ququmatz.bandcamp.com/album/tepeu

For a bunch of reasons, like, it's the first display of the sound, so there's that. You could see where it started since the newer one is outrageously more expansive and sporadic and off the wall, so you could see the development. The first is much more singular and more about a nice execution of smaller ideas, whereas the new one is just relentless and brutally progressive. The first feels much more earthy and organic. And mainly, I just think you'd like it more. Maybe you could do the new one later after another batch of reviews, but you should definitely do the debut first

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Trollheart

Time to return to the world of whale food again. Yes, it's another album I promised to review yonks ago, and this time it's an album of rock covers.

Rock Covers – Plankton and Friends (Plankton)

Probably the artiste I have reviewed the most albums by (three, I think) to date, this is a relatively short one, and though I don't know all the songs I do know the better part of them. Unlike Mondo's, I have a pretty good idea what to expect , so let's fire up the keyboard and get going. Oh, and a clever little album cover, with a rock being covered by paper.

“Jacob's ladder” by Rush is the longest track here, at over seven minutes, and checking on the original I see that's about right and Plankton isn't just extending it. Chances are most of you will know these tracks already so I won't go into too much detail, but this is from Rush's Permanent Waves album and is of course driven on hard rock guitar, though it morphs into what sounds like accordion but I assume is synth around the fourth minute. I'm not certain who's singing – may be some guy called Johnny Megabyte – but the vocal is decent. That's probably as much as I can say about it really. Plankton's guitar expertise as usual is faultless, and whether it's him working the keys, one of his mates or a plugin or backing track it works very well.

Of all the Ozzy tracks he could have chosen though, “Mr. Crowley”, though a popular choice, is not one I know very well so I can't comment on how well or otherwise Plankton covers it. Synthy opening reminds me of the start of Sabbath's “Die young”; there's quite the church organ about it though which marks it out. That's got to be a backing track with Ozzy's vocal on it, there's no way anyone could mimic him so perfectly! Once the guitar gets going it kills all before it as usual, and there's a superb solo reminiscent of the best of Gary Moore (though I'm sure Plank would prefer me to say Randy Rhoads; I'm just not that familiar with the man's work. I've heard some solo Ozzy stuff but not a lot) and one of my alltime favourite rock songs ever gets the Plankton treatment next as he tackles Floyd's “Comfortably numb”. Again, either Plankton is able to copy the vocal style of some true rock icons, or that's Roger Waters on a backing vocal track. Nice female backing vocals – even oif they stutter and fade a little - and synth, but of course it's all in that solo, and Plankton handles it as you would expect, exceptionally well. The vocal again is sort of muddy, fading or too low after the solo – possibly a problem with production? - and the female vocal stutters again, almost as if she's either forgetting the lines or losing her place. Pity because otherwise it's a really good version. It ends of course on that soaraway solo, fading nicely into the distance.

Back to the sixties then for a Beatles standard, “While my guitar gently weeps”, with some real fretboard histrionics from Plankton, thankfully one of the darker songs from the Fab Four, as I would not have liked to have seen him take on “She loves you” or “Penny Lane”. Maybe “Let it be”or “The long and winding road”. But this one works really well, even though I'm not as familiar with it as some people would be. Nice phasing effect there. Another favourite of mine in “Everybody hurts”. Again, I don't have too much experience of REM, but I do know and love this song. Very much like the guitar intro – oh wait: is this going to be an instrumental version? Sounds like it, as I don't hear any vocals yet, and we're now nearly two minutes into the song. Almost halfway really. Yeah, definitely an instrumental. Very nice, very relaxing, though I wonder why he decided not to have singing on this one? Still, it gives him a chance to really show off his dexterity on the guitar in a more restrained way on one of the nicest ballads I've heard.

Nothing I can tell you about the closer. I have never heard a single Lady Gaga song in my life, so “Applause” is totally new to me. Sort of a stabbing keyboard to kick it off then it revs up on slightly AOR-style guitar, powering along nicely. Applause effects, but again no vocals (I don't know if it's supposed to have them, though I assume Lady G doesn't do instrumentals). Meh, it's good of course but it doesn't make me want to rush out and buy the latest Lady Gaga album. Pity Plankton didn't choose another true rock cover to close instead of a pop song. Oh well, his prerogative I guess. Leaves me feeling a little cheated at the end. Oh look! There are vocals there right at the end, kind of in a vocoder or something. Still meh though.

TRACK LISTING AND RATINGS

1. Jacob's ladder
2. Mr. Crowley
3. Comfortably numb
4. While my guitar gently weeps
5. Everybody hurts
6. Applause

A short little album that shows Plankton paying his dues, and pretty much nailing each song (of the ones I know), however I'm looking forward much more to hearing new material from him. Certainly demonstrates, to anyone who doubted, that he is a guitar god, but Plankton, we prefer to worship you for your original material...

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Trollheart

I seem to remember (I do remember) really liking the last effort from Daydream Society, so here's a chance for me to sample some more. Originally recced to me in the “Love or Hate?” thread, I moved it here so that it could be better and more thoroughly reviewed.

So let's do that.


Daze End – Daydream Society (YorkeDaddy)

“Obsolescence” gets us going with what sounds like a very jangly guitar and then more solid guitar coming in, bit of feedback with a kind of walking piano line behind it. At first listen, it's nothing like as relaxing and ambient as For Now but we'll see. A little sparse, perhaps? I find the somewhat squealing and dissonant guitar very much at odds with the solid piano line, which never seems to change the basic melody it plays, and now there's a warped synth getting in on the act. All right, overall I have to say I really don't like this track. Not a great start. The oddly-titled “Existing as a silent film” (where do you guys get your ideas?) comes in on softer organ with a bleepy kind of synth line behind it, going slightly out of tune (I'm sure intentionally) at times, then an acoustic guitar joins, and then the whole synth line falls away leaving only the guitar which is very nice. Piano now joining, but again there are off-key notes which set my teeth on edge and ruin the experience for me. Not quite sure why Yorke wants to play music intentionally out of tune; I prefer mine more harmonious. Abrupt ending is very annoying.

Still a vast improvement on the opener, slightly progressive rock or folk in a way, then “Nailed down” is one of the longer tracks, nearly five minutes which opens with a weather report ore something but mixed and scratched which again is not something that appeals to me. After a minute or so though thankfully it settles down and a big whooshing synth breathes its way in, very spacey and atmospheric and stately. Guitar begins in a kind of Floydesque way in the background, though it hasn't got going yet, as the synth holds court. I guess it's a bit expressionist really, no real tune as such but a lot of effects and I suppose it's meant more to conjure a mood than create a melody. Maybe. Oh fuck! That annoying taped voice is back. Ruined the ending. “Ataxia” brings a return of the whooshing synth swirling around and now a rather nice gentle guitar with maybe digital piano or something? Hopefully it will settle down on this; one thing that bugs me about electronic musicians (or at least, the ones I've listened to) is that they never seem to be able to leave a track alone. Once the melody is established I'd prefer it to continue along those basic lines, but some composers tend to want to warp, split and turn the thing in on itself. Very unsettling, I find.

Luckily this one seems to be holding, with a sort of oriental-sounding keyboard and then what I think may be a sampler. Certainly my favourite so far, though I haven't really liked anything up to this. “Happy madman” is just under two minutes and brings in a deep, lush synth and electric piano in a slow, graceful melody with other little bippy synths adding their voices; kind of sounds a little like that sound the old modems used to make before connecting to the internet. What do you mean, there was always broadband? Think again. Guitar now snarling in but all of a sudden everything just stops, as if the tape was cut off unexpectedly. Disappointing. “Last daze” has another repeating synth line and some very metallic sounding effects and oh crap here comes a spoken line. Sigh. The music has now become appropriately funereal to tie in with the speech, which seem to be something of an elegy.

To be honest, I'm not enjoying this anywhere near as much as I hd expected to. On the album's page, Yorke says he hopes people will see this as a journey, from his schooldays to where he is now, but I don't see it. If that's the case, what's a funeral sequence doing in the middle of the album, unless it's to do with the death of the young, irresponsible Yorke as he finishes school and one way of life ends? Possibly. I don't know. That's my best guess anyhow. The voice has gone now and crashing powerchords take me by surprise – I'm sure there's some artistic reason for this, but it just jars me. “Paradox nights” has promise, starting on a rippling piano line, though I do wonder what Yorke has in store for me this time? It's becoming slightly like a joke at my expense: start off nice and “normal”, reel him in then BAM! Hit him with dissonance, an annoying voice or weird effects, or just chop the damn thing up till it's no longer recognisable. So far though this is going ok, with some buzzy synth coming in and samplers again.

“Brink” slides in on a gorgeous lush synth line, almost putting me in fear of what he's going to do to the melody. Jumpy little synths now coming in, piano too I think, all very nice; upbeat and cheerful. Gets a little intense but not too chaotic. Not bad. I don't like how “If we could levitate” begins, all screeching synths sped up, but then it settles into a nice piano groove with some samplers giving it again a sort of Far Eastern feel at times. Then there's a very African rhythm near the end. Hmm. The longest track is “Savior signals”, and opens with what I take to be an evangelist wittering on and I think I can hear a guitar very distant in the background. Nearly two minutes in and now we have a shimmery dark synth and organ setting up a kind of almost musical chant and then some mad runs on the keys, almost like video game music. Turning into something like an Irish reel now, getting very fast and frenetic. Another five minutes then for “Fixated”, which again starts off on a nice gentle piano and for once stays kind of in that same vein throughout. A second favourite now. If only all the others did the same, but what do I know?

I know the next track is called “Rising time” and has again that vaguely oriental synth sound – much more prevalent this time, also sounds a little like clocks, which I guess is the clue in the title. Much of this album sounds like it could be the soundtrack to some video game or other, though I don't know much about them either. This is relatively pleasant, and there's certainly a feeling of the melody rising as it progresses, so well done there Yorke. The final track is “When our winter ends” and it's generally nice and relaxing, soft synth, smooth melody, nice ending to what has been generally a hard album for me to appreciate, and something of a major disappointment. Oh, and fuck that poxy voice once again right at the end. Actually, not so bad this time, bit of poetry or prose, fits in well. Could have been worse.

TRACK LISTING AND RATINGS

1. Obsolescence
2. Existing as a silent film
3. Nailed down
4. Ataxia
5. Happy madman
6. Last daze
7. Paradox nights
8. Brink
9. If we could levitate
10. Savior signals
11. Fixated
12. Rising time
13. When our winter ends

I really had had high hopes for this, but they were pretty much dashed by the third track, and though it picked up here and there I am generally very let down by this album. I know everyone wants to be creative and different, but for me anyway, among all this experimentation the music gets lost along the way, and that's a sad thing.

Or, you know, maybe it's just me.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018