Trollheart

Never happy with the workload I have, I've decided to select albums at random from my favourite music vendor's front page, where they show the new ones that have come in, and review them. Could be any genre, could be any artist. Could be someone I know, someone I've heard of, someone I've never heard of. Will almost certainly always be albums I have never heard, as the new ones, obviously, on the front page are all this year, and I've heard nothing yet from this year. So could be fun, could be torture, who knows?

Next up:


Enigma by Dream Awake

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Note: Though I usually put the video last, I'm going to put it first here, so that, if anyone wants to, they can click it and listen as they read.


Album title: Worldwide Panic
Artist: Worldwide Panic
Nationality: American
Genre: Heavy metal
Chronology: Debut
What do I know about this artist? Nothing
What’s my experience with this genre? One of my favourite genres
Review: Surprisingly hard to track down information on, so I will assume it’s their debut. Yeah, I see from their Bandcamp page I’m right. Oddly enough, as a metal band (and how lucky for me that the first random album I choose is a metal one, and yes it was random, I’m not cheating: I had no idea who this artist was till I went looking) they’re not to be found on Metal Archives. It starts off with “I Tried”, with a kind of semi-tribal drumbeat then a chanting group vocal which sort of reminds me of a heavier Daughtry or something, touches of maybe post-hardcore in there. Quite melodic, and I would be reluctant to call this metal right away. Heavy sharp guitars, sure, and a thick kind of fuzzy sound to the music, but if any sort of metal it may be more melodic metal, not quite verging on AOR territory but still not as heavy as I might have expected it to be. Decent opener, though it’s not blowing me away just yet.

“Less Than Nothing” has a somewhat more industrial feel with a more growly, raw vocal and what sounds like wailing keyboards, though I don’t have any liner notes so it’s hard to know what instruments are being used; pretty sure there are keys/synth here though. Hey. Maybe Discogs has it? Nah, no such luck. Some pretty catchy vocal harmonies on this, but is it standing out for me? Not quite yet it’s not. Very short. And now we have a cover version of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. It’s good, it’s interesting, particularly the “unclean” backing vocals, which are - perhaps unintentionally - funny, but was it needed? Is it a cynical attempt to grab listeners through the usage of a well-known pop song given the metal treatment?

“Falling Apart” has a nice kick to it, and despite my dislike of them, I would have to say the unclean vocals - again as kind of backing, although they do take over for a few lines - work quite well here and make the song seem more metal, though ironically for me also push this further into post-hardcore territory, as I understand the genre, my grasp of which is very limited I admit. It’s good but is it great? No. No it isn’t. But it’s not terrible. Hardly a ringing endorsement, I know. Have to say, “Another Side of Me” is really awful, just too dark and muggy and with no real idea in the song, confused and sounds a little claustrophobic, while “I Wish I Was Dead” does at least have a lot of energy and kicks things back to life (ironically) with some spooky whistling keyboards I’m sure are not meant to, but do, convey the idea of ghosts and scary goings-on. Hilarious. Best track by a mile. Love this. Kind of a dark rap and horror-style laughter. Brilliant.

This kind of light-hearted madness continues well into the next track, the appropriately-titled “Shrapnel”, which fires riffs and vocal growls all over the place, necessitating a dive for cover as they whistle over your head. Great fun. I like this one too. Perhaps this album is making a last dash for glory, a desperate attempt to finish strongly, blowing away the clinging, cloying cobwebs of the last six tracks and just going for it now? Hopefully. This is a lot better. The swarming keyboard arpeggios accompanying the aural assault of “Burn Letter” work really well, and yeah, I feel that after kind of stumbling around a little, feeling its way in the dark, this album is finally beginning to find its feet and strut a lot more confidently along. Much better.

Oddly enough, given my own personal tastes, it’s the unclean vocals that work best for me here; they give this album much more a sense of being real metal than the normal ones do. It’s not that the guy’s a bad singer (maybe he’s doing both sets of vocals, I really don’t know) but the “clean” ones just sound, I don’t know, too clean? Like the band is trying - unsuccessfully - to straddle the worlds of pop/rock music and metal, and they only really begin to succeed once they let go and fall roaring and growling over into the metal pit, leaving the safer and more commercial shores of pop music behind. There’s a return to the industrial style with “The Things That Are Meant to Be”, with a sort of nod back to the first half of the album, think there may be some sort of rap going on there too. Not mad about this one now at all. Then again, it has a nice hook in it. Meh.

Acoustic guitar brings in “The Great Departure” as the album closes, so I guess we’re looking at a ballad. But then again… It’s kind of more like a campfire cowboy song or something, great vocal harmonies and some fine lush synth melding with the guitar, and despite the fact that the vocals are all clean, it’s quite easily a standout and a hell of a closer.

Favourite track(s): I Wish I Was Dead, Shrapnel, The Great Departure
Least favourite track(s): Another Side of Me, The Things That Are Meant to Be

Would I listen to more? I really don’t think I’d be too fussed. It’s got its moments but they’re too few and far between. The closer does leave me with a sense of curiosity as to where this band could go when they really try though.
Rating:

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Key

It's always cool to see your thoughts on heavy metal / death metal etc nowadays because I remember back during your first metal month that even you were getting kind of blown away with some of the stuff you were listening to. I still remember how much you enjoyed Slayer upon your first listen. Probably my favorite time during the metal month saga tbh. Your thoughts on things you aren't super familiar with at first are really interesting to read.

Trollheart

Hey thanks man. Yeah, Metal Month was fun, all three years of it. I really came to appreciate metal I had up to then just dismissed, thanks to the help of a lot of you, so I'll always be grateful for that.

Struggling with this next one, I gotta tell ya. Watch for a post later today.

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Trollheart

Album title: Delta T
Artist: Steve and the Nepotisms
Nationality: Dunno
Genre: Not a scooby
Chronology: Search me
What do I know about this artist? Not a damn thing
What’s my experience with this genre? I am unable to answer that question sir


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tioM...o0kaY&index=20

Review: It just amazes me how people now put their “official websites” together. There is ZERO information on these guys ON THEIR OWN WEBSITE! Nothing but a picture of an album (not this one) and links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al. I man, how ****ing lazy can you be? No bio, no information, no discography, no tags. Nothing. On their own website. So once again I’m going in here totally blind as the proverbial flying mouse. Not the slightest clue what this band or artist is going to be, what to expect, armed with not even the most basic information about them such as what genre they are or how many albums they have or hell, even where they come from!

Right well “Red” starts off with a ticking clock, mirroring the picture on the cover, then a ringing guitar reminiscent of Pink Floyd at the opening of The Division Bell slowly fading in and getting a little more audible. Siren going now, like an air-raid warning then eventually a big heavy guitar crashes through, bringing powerful organ with it. I see this opener is nine minutes long, so could this be prog maybe? The vocal has a kind of country/folk feel to it with a bit of blues mixed in, so you know, I don’t know. Let me look at some other sites, see if I can find them anywhere. No, not a screed of information can I dig up. Their Soundcloud page is as devoid of data as their own website. Definitely a blues feel now, could be psychedelic rock maybe? Damned if I know. Do I like it? I’m really not sure; the keyboard work is pretty superb, though I couldn’t quite say the same about the vocal.

The title track seems to run mostly on a fast piano line with growling guitar and some great organ runs, and is I think an instrumental, has again a vague sense of prog in some of it, a really nice church organ passage with what might be synthesised flute perhaps; goes through a lot of changes, in fairness, for a piece that’s less than five minutes long. “Icarian Lullaby”, on the other hand, is very short, just over a minute and a half, and I would assume with a length like that it would be another - no, there’s a vocal, and indeed it is very much the lullaby, seems to be female vocals here and it’s mostly driven by a nursery rhyme-like piano. “Blood for the Money” comes in on powerful throaty organ, with a dark, kind of chanted vocal which then turns into a pretty standard one and bounces along on a nice guitar line.

I’m really not sure what to make of this so far. No idea what genre it fits into; seems to straddle a few different ones - blues, prog, psych, folk, country, hard rock. I find “The Dirt” pretty weird, with a sort of off-key vocal and elements of ELO in the backing vocals, then about half way there’s a lovely piano passage, which sounds completely out of place, the more so as the vocal starts a high kind of croon (or is that the guitar?) and slides back into a Floydy sense of melody. It comes across as pretty fractured, this song. Guitar breaks out then at least in the introduction of “For You”, the melody sounding pretty similar to the previous song, almost as if this a continuation of it. Yeah I think the overall impression I’m getting here is of too much crammed into every track: just when you think you have a handle on it they change it into something different and it’s quite disorienting.

“Losing Sleep” is a nice little ballad, which for once seems to go more for the simple approach. I feel this band/artist works better when they do this, rather than, as they then do, hammering me over the head with a thousand different things in the slightly Waits-infused “The Big Easy”, jazz and blues meeting and weaving all over the place, but it’s not too bad. I just wish I knew what these guys were about - it’s a little like listening to an album from Diablo Swing Orchestra or The Dear Hunter: you never quite know what’s coming next. I suppose that could be seen as a good thing, but for me it’s just more frustrating than anything else. There’s still another fourteen tracks to go (twenty in all) and I feel it may be something of a slog.

Sounds like we could be on to a winner though with the gospel-like “Doubt”, with a slow, measured pace and some sort of doo-wop backing vocals against a triumphant rolling organ (shut up) but “Masters of Shadow” is not much good at all, getting back to this idea of forcing too much into one song, and the vocal is quite exaggerated, which doesn’t help. A lot better is “Angels in the Dust”, with a nice bubbly keyboard backing and some ticking percussion (drum machine?) and a proper vocal. Okay, now there’s some speech for apparently no reason. Think he may be talking to someone on the phone, maybe saying goodnight. If so, puke even more than Steve Earle’s “Little Rock and Roller,” and I hate that song. Some stupid warp thing at the end too, just in case I didn’t hate it enough. Ridiculous.

And so it goes. Kind of impossible to know what to say about this album, it’s just so much all over the place. “Ghosts” hits you in the face and runs off laughing, “Regret” has a lot of hollow majesty about it, a nice instrumental, and “Just in Time” is not without its charm, but it’s hard to pin down decent tracks as nothing seems to stay the same for very long. I never consider it a good sign when I’m constantly checking the track listing to see how much longer this goes for. I mean, it’s not so bad that I wish it was over, but I’m finding it a bit of a struggle, won’t lie. There are some gems here, like the lovely sweet piano ballad “Too Much Living”, but you do have to sift through an awful lot of, not garbage, but second-rate stuff to get to them, and I don’t know if I think it’s worth the effort.

Things get rocking with “Clear to Me/The Escape”, which has a real hard edge to it, led by snarling guitar and with a pretty fine piano arpeggio at the end, while “Water” brings back the early folk/country feel, squeezing in a little gospel there too, with a nice, if somewhat incongruous instrumental ending, and then “Breaking Free” goes back to the heads-down rock with somehow a sense of the more upbeat songs of Mostly Autumn. Yeah. Shut up. And the final track is the longest, over ten minutes of “Better Man”. Sounds like it might be an epic end to a not-exactly-epic album, finishing strongly with a powerful anthem. Superb organ here and it’s almost but not quite gospel again in its approach, certainly a lot of emotion in the piece and a fine closer. If I’m honest though it probably runs for two to three more minutes than it needs to, adding to the overblown nature of this album. Too many tracks, too many ideas all crammed together, and many of the songs too long. Never heard of the phrase “less is more”, guys?

Favourite track(s): Losing Sleep, The Big Easy, Doubt, Regret, Too Much Living, Better Man
Least favourite track(s): The Dirt, Masters of Shadow

Would I listen to more? I really don’t think so, no. This was a struggle, and while there were good tracks there, it’s not an experience I’d wish to repeat.
Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: Other Words Fail Me
Artist: Wildes
Nationality: English
Genre: SO many! According to Discogs: electronic, rock, pop, folk, world, country
Chronology: Debut album
What do I know about this artist? Nothing, other than her real name is Ella Walker
What’s my experience with this genre? Can’t answer that: too many here and I have experience with some but not with others
Review: As I say above, this is the debut album from British singer Ella Walker, who goes under the professional name of Wildes. Sultry kind of voice, bit like Chrissy Hynde mixed with Suzanne Vega, at least on the opener, “Woman in Love”, which has a stripped-down feel to it, kind of a shuffling beat. “Lightly” is more driven on piano, slow and moody but with a somewhat more engaging vocal and some heartbeat percussion. The next one is more upbeat, with a sort of new-wave style rhythm, but I must say her laconic, almost sulky way of singing is a little hard to get to grips with. “Far and Wide” is the best of the tracks so far though. Some very good guitar on this one: does she play guitar? Don’t know: details are very very sketchy on the album.

I wonder was this a single? Certainly catchy enough and with an upbeat message that should have made it a hit. And maybe did. I don’t know. She takes her foot right off the accelerator for “Flames”, which is a moody ballad with nevertheless a real sense of energy and passion. Back to the piano ballads with “Restless”, again very moody and back to the sort of laconic singing, a style I’m not fond of. Nice little song though. Nice to see the pace pick up however for “Just Like You”, which ambles along in a pleasant groove, some of the backing vocals putting me very much in mind of Judie Tzuke, as does “Real Life”, a much slower and brooding effort carried on some very expressive bass, kind of downtempo I guess you could call it.

In general, a few tracks aside - and conspicuously so - this is an album of pretty low-key, introspective songs, which probably works best if you’re feeling a little down and don’t particularly want to be cheered up. Not that it’s a depressing album, but it certainly won’t encourage you to get up and dance or anything. “Anyime” stays true to the basic mould Wildes is working with here, by which I don’t mean to imply this is an example of a “cookie cutter” album, not by any means. But the same ideas flow through a lot of her music, and in my opinion it could do with a bit of a kick up the arse, as most of the time it seems determined to remain in the groove it seems to have become stuck in. Perhaps she prefers that. I think I’d rather hear more of a mix.

“Enfant” is a more acoustic number, but again low-key and somewhat morose; nice the way it drops away to just acoustic guitar and piano near the end there. The final track features the Flaming Lips, which means nothing to me, but might to you. I can’t honestly say I see anything different about “True Love (Make Me Believe)” and no real contribution the ones whose collagen goes on fire make, but I’m not that familiar with them to be able to make that determination, so maybe they do add a lot to it. Kind of a Beatles feel to it near the end.

Oh, and I don’t know what Discogs are on about: I don’t hear any world, country, folk or really any rock in here. Honestly, it’s just too slow and moody. I think I need that Darkthrone album again!

Note: I know I use the word "moody" too much here. But it fits; it's just that kind of an album.

Favourite track(s): Far and Wide, Lightly, Real Life
Least favourite track(s):

Would I listen to more? I wouldn’t be rushing to, to be honest. This is her debut, so there’s no chance to do that at the moment, but it might be interesting to see how her sound develops over her next few albums, if it does. It wouldn’t worry me if I didn’t hear any more from her though.
Rating:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iCF...IktS4&index=10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018