Alpine Fault - Iraena's Ashes (2011)

This is the year I intend to be good and keep up with finding and reviewing new music, and what better way to start with one of the best bands I've heard in a long while.  Alpine Fault is from New Zealand (a first for me) and their debut album, Iraena's Ashes, is a concept album inspired by the true story of the mysterious disappearance of Iraena Asher.

Now, I'm a sucker for real life mysteries, and when I checked out the band's website and read the background of the album, I started digging into the Asher case (how many truly educational metal albums have you heard lately), and while knowing the story is not necessary to appreciate the CD, it really does enhance the themes of loss and melancholia that weave throughout both music and lyrics.

Musically, they cover a lot of ground. There's shades of Fates Warning and Dream Theater in there (it especially evokes similar imagery to the "Scenes from a memory" release), and just enough Opeth to provide contrast.  In less capable hands, the violin playing could have become a gimmick, but the band integrates it so well that it just seems...right.  One talented violinist achieves more than an entire phalanx of synthesizers.

While Nadia Vanek's vocals are near perfect, the big surprise is Ant Royle (guitars and vocals), who has a great voice himself--plaintive without over-emoting.  Together they manage to wring every drop of pathos from the music.  The guitar work is stunning--as complex as you'd expect from a prog-metal band, but as with the violin there's no sense of flashy gimmicks.

Top it off with some amazing cover art, courtesy of  Lady Symphonia, and a kick-ass first video directed by Adrian Pagano, and it's really, really hard to believe that this is a debut effort.  If there was any justice in this world, Alpine Fault would be huge.

Here's the video for "I'll See You Soon", a wise choice for the band to introduce themselves with.

Metallica does "Lulu"

The "Pandora's Box" Lulu, not the saccharine songstress from the 70's.

Metallica and Lou Reed got together to record a concept album based on the Lulu plays. Sounds awesome, right?

Unfortunately, wrong. It's shit. It's worse than shit--it's really bad shit. Monotone, meandering muttering from Reed accompanied by sloppy, anemic, directionless musical accompaniment by the merest shell of the band who performed such masterpieces as "Master of Puppets" and "Ride The Lightning"--or even "Load" and "Reload".

Frank Wedekind is the only person who comes out well from this, since the lucky bastard is dead and not thus not forced to witness this abomination based on his work. What the poor sod ever did to deserve this pathetic sodomizing of his life's work is beyond me.

On the plus side for Metallica, thanks to "Lulu", "St Anger" is no longer the steamiest heap of shit in their career--that's a comfort, I guess.



An Open Letter To Lars

Before you start your pre-emptive whining:  fans and critics are NOT  trashing you "because we cut our hair", "because they can't cope with change", "because they can't understand what we're doing" or whatever  self-delusional, bullshit excuse you come up with this time to dismiss the inevitable landslide of negative feedback for your latest release "Lulu".

They are criticizing you because you have offered up yet another steaming heap of shit masquerading as "art".  Time to pull on some big-boy pants and accept the truth--people are tired of you sitting around luxuriating in the aroma of your own farts while insulting and belittling the fans who still care enough about your music to be honest with you about how you've managed to piss away a legitmate musical legacy on a succession of insipid, self-absorbed albums that fans can easily spot for what they are--token efforts from a band that just isn't trying anymore.

Take a moment, actually LISTEN to what you recorded 30 years ago and try to understand why it connected with people.  Then listen to what you've been recording for the past decade and try and figure out where you guys lost the thread.  Oh, and you might want to take all that creative energy that you put into inventing excuses about how your fans are too stupid and vulgar to understand just how brilliant your recent albums have been, and rechannel it into writing music that doesn't suck sweaty donkey balls.  Just a thought.

Lulu doesn't have to be the nail in Metallica's coffin, but I swear if I hear yet more of your simpering bullshit blaming US (the fans) for the failure of YOUR crappy albums, then the best of luck to you and I hope you find the fans you think you want, because I will no longer be among them

Under the Radar Pt. 1

It happens.

You're waiting with bated breath for the new release by a band that piques your interest. If the band is, say, an Iron Maiden or a Judas Priest, then you know exactly when it's coming out and can plan accordingly. But what happens if it's a younger, lesser known band on an indepedent label? Then it gets released to little fanfare and slips right under your radar. Like I say, it happens.

There's two such releases out right now that I just found out about last week. Hopefully they will be arriving at the station in the near future, as both bands have gotten excellent response from listeners with their debuts.

The first is Norway's Circus Maximus, whose "The 1st Chapter" made for an impressive introduction to their innovative Prog-metal sound. The new release is called "Isolate" and from the reviews I've seen so far is a worthy follow-up. I've heard a couple of sample tracks, and if anything I liked it even more than "1st Chapter"

The second release is from the engimatically (some would say downright oddly) named Spheric Universe Experiment is called "Anima" and it appears to have slipped under Amazon's radar too. S.U.E are from France, and their first CD, "Mental Torments" was a juicy slab of Dream Theater-influenced Prog-metal. I've heard one track from Anima, and it picks up where "...Torments" left off--perhaps a little more accessible, but that's impossible to state for sure without hearing the whole release.