Trollheart

Okay then, looks like this is first.
Note: I downloaded the program I used to use, but as it needs a computer reboot I'm holding off on that; I've too much running that I don't want to have to rack up again. So for now I'm using an RLG which rather hilariously gave me as its first pick Z! Oh come on! Who has a ton of albums by artists beginning with Z? Well, probably Frownland. And Hawk. But not me. So after a somewhat futile attempt to work out which of the four albums under Z I might look into, I said **** it and re-rolled. This time I got an A, which eventually led me to these guys.


Moonhorse - Atavarium - 2013
Genre: Doom Metal
RYM rating: 3.59


Gonna do something different this year. I'll check RYM and f I can find any basic comments - not reviews, but just comments - about the album in question I'll post them, and then see if I agree/disagree with the poster. Here's what someone has to say about this one:

Avatarium is a new doom metal band lead by the mighty Leif Edling, current bassist and one of the founding members of doom masters Candlemass. He is joined by musicians that are currently members of such bands as Evergrey, Tiamat and Jupiter Society. Their new EP, Moonhorse, features 2 tracks off their upcoming self titled debut album due to be released November 1. It also contains an accoustic cover of the great song War Pigs.

Moonhorse mixes some very powerful traditional doom metal with some rather melodic doom metal. The songs are powerful and catchy which allows this excellent group of musicians to shine. The interesting thing about Avatarium for me is the band has an exceptional female lead singer. While Jennie-Ann Smith is a great singer, she does not sound at all like what I would have expected her to sound like. Yes, she is powerful at times, bluesy/jazzy at times and even a bit vunerable sounding, too. While her voice works for me, I am not sure how well she will be received by hard core doom metal fans. For somebody like me, a fan of female vocals in metal, I really like Jennie-Ann a lot. She is particularly impressive on the acoustic cover of War Pigs. I thought I would hate this acoustic cover, but it is actually quite lovely.

I am really looking forward to the full length album due out in November. Jennie-Ann puts a smile on my face with her vocals and the band writes some excellent music!

Hah! Great when someone else does the work for you, eh? Nah, seriously, now I have to listen to it and see if I agree. It would hardly be much fun just letting someone else speak for me, now would it?

Hell, let's throw in the rating too, see if I agree or not. RYM ratings are all out of a possible 5.0, it would appear.

As yer man above says, this is an EP not an album (but that's okay; they're welcome too) and has only three tracks, though being in the genre it is perhaps they're over ten minutes long each! Ah, no. Total time nineteen minutes. Fair enough.

Well, before we begin, just what the heck is an Avatarium? Somewhere avatars live? To the dictionary! Okay. Not in the Collins Gem one. How about Oxford? No dice there either. Thesaurus? Nah. To Google then we must fly. And that's about as much use. Guess they made it up then. Fair enough I suppose.

As our helpful friend above notes, this is a band involving the founder of Candlemass, who, while Black Sabbath may very well be the undisputed godfathers of metal and fathers of doom metal, must be at the least its sullen, sulky, morose firstborn. So this should by rights be epic, grinding and, well, doomy. Is it? Let's hit play.

Oh yeah it is. Very Sabs this, and probably very Candlemass too, though I'm not as familiar with them as I maybe should be. That's interesting: sounds like, yep keyboards in there and - what in the name of Ozzy? Now it's gone all acoustic and there's a young lady singing, very beautifully I must say. Then the hard punchy guitars are back. Wow. Different for sure. I can see why Wiki has them down as progressive rather than doom metal – actually they have them as prog rock, which at times I could agree with. Good to see herself – Jennie-Ann Smith – can sing along with the harder rocky guitar passages as well as the acoustic. Impressive stuff.

Hmm. Thought that was the next track starting, but no, it's the same one still. Big doom freak-out now as the guitarist goes wild. Hey, looks like Jennie-Ann is married to him. Lucky him!

Second track, “Boneflower” (great title!) is really less in the doom metal line and much more a goth/prog metal hybrid, but again highlights Jennie-Ann's powerful but not overpowering voice; kind of reminds me of a heavier Lana Lane really. This song brings to mind Tiamat, around the Judas Christ era, and the keys really come into their own here. They end up paying tribute to their dark forefathers (four fathers, huh?) with a very different, acoustic cover of “War Pigs”. Nice. Impressed.

Not so sure dyed-in-the-wool fans of doom metal will be into this though, to echo my man above, but overall I agree with him. Pretty sweet.

Got to be
4 Thumbs Up easy.

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Trollheart

This time we're off to the other end of the alphabet, where a W followed by an O and then a G leaves me scratching my head – ain't got no artists who start with WOG! So I keep rolling till I get anything other than a vowel (of which I get precisely four) and then B comes up. So WOB. Ah. That gives us these guys.




Hinterland – Wobbler (2005)
Genre: Progressive Rock
RYM rating: 3.71


Oh shut your whining! You know a very large percentage of my music library is going to be prog rock. And so is this. Debut album, apparently, with only four tracks on it. Ah, but one is 27 minutes long! Now that's what I call prog! Someone with the hilarious name of crackstreetboys put this up only last month, if you can believe it, for an album released fifteen, almost sixteen years ago:

I know this is supposed to be a retro throwback act, and I know I've complained about “prog” not being “progressive” enough before and that should apply here more than ever, but I like this more than a great deal of the stuff that it's mimicking. One factor in that is the vocals: they're there, but not omnipresent: where they're placed in each song is chosen carefully, and they never seem as . . .*fuddy duddy*as a great deal of old prog does to me. Particularly, I just*can't*get into either Genesis or the modern acts that are thought of as Genesis clones, so that whole “pastoral” or medieval approach to prog has never clicked with me as well in anything else I've ever heard as it does here. The songs are obviously very long, but to my ears they neither get lost meandering in the woods nor throw up random changes just to keep it going. In other words, it strikes me along with*Änglagård*as being truly “symphonic” in its compositional structure and not just in the sense of throwing in synths. There's an effect music has on you when you put it in the background to set the vibe, and there's an effect music has when you focus straight on it and expect it to surprise you: music that's suited for one often isn't for the other, but this does an excellent job of drifting in and out of both. For whatever reason, their bigger commercial success From Silence to Somewhere doesn't hit me like this one does.

Right on, brother! Um. Okay then. Let's see how it goes. Interesting to see such instruments as clavinet, glockenspiel and harpsichord listed. Vocal is very gentle and low-key; the whole thing is really so far. I don't know though, Jesus, starting off with almost 28 minutes of music? On your debut? I mean, it was good, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't say it really held my attention. And now the next ones are 12 and 15 minutes long. Yeah overall I enjoyed it but I can't say anything really stood that much out. I'm sure I'd listen to more, but I'm not moving them to the top of any playlist or anything. I'd probably agree with crackstreetlad: good for having in the background, good to relax to but not something that leaps out at you and says BUY ME! BUY MORE BY ME! What? That's not what cracky said? Well, that's what I say. And it is my thread, after all.

Meh, for now I'll give this a tentative
2 Thumbs Up.

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Trollheart

Next up is another

(Why two? Well I've decided to differentiate between totally new artists to me and ones from whom I've heard something, but not this album. So basically two icons means it's the first I've heard from them, one means I've heard (an)other album(s) from them but not this one.)

This time from

(That's Czech Republic, for those of you not up on your vexillology)

Diablerie – Ereley (2020)
Genre: Progressive Metal
RYM rating: n/a


Very odd. Firstly, I feel this has been on my computer a lot longer than a year, so the release date of Jan 2020 shown on Discogs I'm not at all sure about, but it's the only site I can see the album on. Despite being described as progressive metal, it's neither on Metal Archives nor Prog Archives, and Discogs lists the band as being from “Europe”. How helpful. In fact, Googling tells me they're from the Czech Republic, hence the flag above, and Discogs tells me this is their second album.

I must say, it looks very bargain basement horror comic, doesn't it? The black-and-white drawing with red being the only colour, to show up the blood. The snarling face of, well, whoever that is on the album cover. It would be so hilarious if this were a soft acoustic rock album! Not that I expect it to be of course. I think it's all in their native language too, so that'll be fun. Oh no wait, it's not. Well.

There's no RYM rating as it comes up completely blank there, no idea. And so no helpful comment to let us know what it might be like. Guess there's only one way to find out...

A growl and some supposed-to-be-scary whisperings just to let us know this is meant to be, um, diabolic I guess, and we're off. Vocal's growly, sort of Chadlike, but certainly listenable. “Nephilim” has a really cool melody to it, really like the piano work on this album so far. Hey this just keeps getting better! Oh look: they're using Bach's “Tocatta and Fugue” on “Enchantress”, and it works very well. Really enjoying this. A whole lot better than, to be honest, I had expected, given the truly awful cover. I'll have to come back and review this one properly. For now it's getting a solid
4 Thumbs Up.




What? Oh yeah, I'm doing ratings now. Top top top album is 5 Thumbs Up, Worst piece of absolute dross is Five Thumbs Down. And everything in between. Why?? Shut up, that's why.

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fire

Avatavium
I like the Instrumental part but not her voice it was annoying, maybe if it wasn't in English I would like it more I don't know.
It's a bit poppy to my ears.

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fire

Wobbler
I liked them more, it's more interesting, I like the instruments.
I don't like it when it's in English it's very ordinary.
It should have stayed Instrumental.

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Trollheart

Avatarium: I would disagree, I think her voice is great, however I would agree (as I said) that your average doom metal fan would probably not like it; they're used to growly, animal grunts from their singers generally. Women in doom metal are few and far between.

Wobbler: I think I'd get into them more but the songs were very long (I know - says a prog head! ) and didn't seem, to me, to have enough to justify their length, at least at first listen. I did hear a lot there I liked though.

So far, the best is Ereley, by a country light year.

Thanks for commenting, fire. Hope you're feeling better today.

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Ah yes, God moves in mysterious ways, Trollheart to annoy! Looks like we've rolled on a Christian Rock album, guys. Yeah I have them. Some of them are all right. Look, I may have just downloaded it because the name sounds cool. I do that sometimes, you know. Anyway, let's get to it.


We Are the Broken – Seventh Day Slumber (2014)
Genre: Christian Rock
RYM rating: 3.37


These fine lads hail from Texas - Dallas in fact, so, you know, don't mess with them. Or their god. This is their ninth album of a total, so far, of twelve. Who said Christian Rock wasn't profitable? What? Nobody? Well, uh, good then. I guess. Nobody on RYM wants to advance an opinion, so I guess God helps those who helps themselves, right? Never quite understood why the Bible condones shoplifting and theft, but there you go. Theological discussion for another time, maybe.

Ah, Wiki has some reactions. A bit odd that Bert Saraco of*CCM Magazine*rated the album three stars out of five, commenting how the band on the release are "Rocking with a definite sense of purpose" that contains "Plenty of sound, a little thin on artistry, but an album with a healing message and head-banging rhythms. “Plenty of sound”? Well, it wouldn't be much use if it was silent, now would it? Weird.

Hah! More like the Devil's music than God's! Powerful stuff, though a lot of it sounds the same. “Trust in Me” is a nice ballad, though should that not be “Trust in Him?” Sorry, sorry. Meh, kind of bog-standard rock/emo/hard rock with plenty of room for preaching salvation. Not bad, not at all, but probably not something I'd necessarily come back to very quickly.

I guess it's another
3 Thumbs Up.

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fire

My comment on Ereley didn't work.???
It's boring. Sorry.
Again it's in English. The Instrumental is ok.
Sounds like every other band.

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fire

Can you recommend something not in English?
I would like to listen to different languages.

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Trollheart

What sort? Rock, metal, pop, other?
I can give you the likes of Josh Groban, Tierra Santa, PFM, a whole bunch of stuff but it's best to know what area you're interested more in.

Incidentally: instrumental? Stay tuned...

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