THE BERZERKER: The Reawakening

Produced by The Berzerker

Released: 2008

I have a love/hate relationship with The Berzerker. On one level I think it's great that they have managed to achieve so much and helped further the cause of Aussie metal on a global scale, but at the same time their music hasn't done much for me. Originally I just wrote them off as little more than a gimmick act, but over the course of time they have developed into something more of a legitimate band with a more focused approach to songwriting. With their fifth album, The Berzerker has chosen to cut ties with their label and go down the fully independent path, a brave and risky venture but one which this band is well capable of travelling.

Luke Kenny puts everything into all this band does, so it's no surprise that even without label backing, The Reawakening comes in a digipak with a massive colour poster and six bonus remixes. Packaging and marketing has always been The Berzerker's strongpoint, but on The Reawakening this has been backed up by perhaps the best material they have yet created.

Now free of any constraints that a record label may have placed upon him, Kenny is once again able to explore the darker industrial aspects of The Berzerker's music and combine them far more effectively with the grinding, repetitive death metal side of the band. This has led to a return of that crazy and annoying high-speed popping noise that served as beats on Dissimulate and sounds more like a triggered lunchbox lid than any kind of real drumkit, but at least it only appears in short bursts and doesn't overwhelm everything. It's clear that The Berzerker has striven for a perfect balance, and the meshing of technology and mechanical sometimes works to create a cold, clinical atmosphere. The Reawakening isn't that far removed from The Amenta's n0n at times, but whereas that is endless droning soundscapes, this is hyperspeed blast and grind surrounding Kenny's monster-like vocals. "Spare Parts" is just about as fast as song can get and "Internal Examination" isn't much slower.

As usual, speed is at the very essence of everything The Berzerker does and so, also as usual, there isn't a great deal of variety between the tracks, but with a heavier emphasis on gabba beats and industrial noises that doesn't simply fall back on endless samples (one of the problems that hamstrung the first two albums) The Reawakening is the most cohesive and consistent album from this band yet.

1. Wisdom and Corruption
2. An Unforgotten Force
3. Caught in the Crossfire
4. The Deception
5. Disassembly Line
6. The Evolution of Aggression
7. Your Final Seconds
8. Harvesting a Loved One
9. Internal Examination
10. Spare Parts

Rating: 72%

HIATUS

Nope, not a review this time! The Sound Cellar is closed at the moment. What with a hospital visit, a whooping cough scare and the family Christmas juggernaut, I haven't had the energy or the inclination to review for the last week or so. I'd like to thank all the regular readers; I'll be back soon with more opinionated bullshit!

VARIOUS ARTISTS: We Wish You a Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year

Produced by Bob Kulick and Brett Chassen
Released: 2008

So if you'd ever wondered what it would be like if a bunch of metal guys got together and recorded an album of Christmas songs, here's your answer. We Wish You a Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year is a compilation of seasonal classics given the once over by a group of rockers and metalheads including Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Alice Cooper and Ronnie James Dio, and members of Shadows Fall, Testament, Ratt and ZZ Top among others, and the results are a lot of fun.

Fun is the key here, so anyone wishing to venture further needs to leave their serious side at the door. These kinds of albums are only to be taken with a grain of salt, but let's face it, it is hard to go past a version of "Run Rudolph Run" done by Lemmy, Billy Gibbons and Dave Grohl. It's just really, really cool. Alice Cooper gets into the spirit of the project with his "Santa Claws is Coming to Town", whereupon the title character is then going to break everything and burn the place to the ground. And what could be more metal than a thrash version of "Silent Night" with Chuck Billy singing? Possibly only Dio and Iommi getting overly dramatic on "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Doro Pesch and Michael Schenker team up for the traditional German carol "O Christmas Tree" and Stephen Pearcy, Tracii Guns, Bob Kulick, Billy Sheehan and Greg Bissonette offer a riotous "Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer".

Yep, the cheese is thicker here than on the average Domino's pizza, but this beats the hell out of having to listen to Mariah Carey on Christmas Day. And it's almost worth it just to hear Lemmy shout "Merry Christmas, motherfuckers!"

NOTE: There is a different version of this album that features only the first 11 tracks, with Mark Slaughter and Doug Aldrich on "We Wish You a Merry Xmas" instead of Soto and the Kulicks. Apparently the version I have has been pulled, but I can't find anything that tells me why. Most likely licensing issues are to blame, but I can't say for sure. Oh well. This is the one I have, so this is the one I'll review.

1. We Wish You a Merry Xmas: Jeff Scot Soto, Bruce & Bob Kulick, Chris Wyse, Ray Luzier
2. Run Rudolph Run: Lemmy, Billy Gibbons, Dave Grohl
3. Santa Claws is Coming to Town: Alice Cooper, John 5, Billy Sheehan, Vinny Appice
4. God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen: Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Rudy Sarzo, Simon Wright
5. Silver Bells: Geoff Tate, Carlos Cavazo, James Lomenzo, Ray Luzier
6. Little Drummer Boy: Dug Pinnick, George Lynch, Billy Sheehan, Simon Phillips
7. Santa Claus is Back in Town: Ripper Owens, Steve Morse, Juan Garcia, Marco Mendoza, Vinny Appice
8. Silent Night: Chuck Billy, Scott Ian, Jon Donais, Chris Wyse, John Tempesta
9. Deck the Halls: Oni Logan, Craig Goldy, Tony Franklin, John Tempesta
10. Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer: Stephen Pearcy, Tracii Guns, Bob Kulick, Billy Sheehan, Greg Bissonette
11. Rockin' Around the Xmas Tree: Joe Lynn Turner, Bruce & Bob Kulick, Rudy Sarzo, Simon Wright
12. Happy Xmas (War is Over): Tommy Shaw, Steve Lukather, Marco Mendoza, Kenny Aronoff
13. O Christmas Tree: Doro Pesch, Michael Schenker, Tony Franklin, Frankie Banali
14. Auld Lang Syne: Girlschool

Rating: 76%

LED ZEPPELIN: Untitled

Produced by Jimmy Page

Released: 1971

There was plenty of good stuff on the first three Led Zeppelin albums, but the fourth is where all the elements of their sound finally coalesed properly. Unadorned, with a non-descript cover, no title and not even a track listing, this album was intended to be judged purely on its contents alone. After only their second full year as a band, no other group in history would have had the temerity to attempt such an unconventional experiment, but Led Zeppelin were already massive superstars by the time of this release, so anything with their name on it was going to be pre-judged even before it had been heard.

Dominated by the epic masterpiece of "Stairway to Heaven", this album was the culmination of all the band's eclectic aspirations, leanings and inspirations from bombastic heavy rock to psychedelic stomps, folk rock to enormous blues work-outs. No matter what the guise, Led Zeppelin managed to wear it with consummate ease here, as they would for the rest of their career. It was the perfect amalgam of excess and subtlety that set them apart from every other band of their era, and most others to follow.

With its curious "backwards" riff, "Black Dog" got things underway, showing Led Zeppelin at their most primal: Robert Plant's remarkable shriek, Jimmy Page's urgent guitar splats and John Bonham's huge, booming drums. Bonham's immense sound is an integral part of what made this band so special, and here they were recorded with him playing at the bottom of a stairwell and the mikes at the top for maximum echo and reverb. On top of that, on "Four Sticks" he plays with two sticks in each hand! There's more than one reason why Bonzo is still revered as a drum monster, and many of them are on display on this album.

This also marked the full flowering of Plant's lyrical mysticism, marrying mythological elements with Tolkienesque themes and characters in the mandolin-driven folk tune "The Battle of Evermore". Also featuring his vocals intertwining with those of Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny, this is a rare moment of rock magic that is another gem in the crown of an album already spilling over with them.

The centrepiece of course is "Stairway to Heaven", a classic so insurmountable that it lingers to this day as one of the greatest rock songs of all. There's no need for an elaborate description; this song is a microcosm of everything Led Zeppelin was about, and this album is sheer genius from beginning to end.

1. Black Dog
2. Rock and Roll
3. The Battle of Evermore
4. Stairway to Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going to California
8. When the Levee Breaks

Rating: 100%

IN THIS MOMENT: The Dream

Produced by Kevin Churko

Released: 2008

Much lauded at the time of its release for being a breath of fresh air on the scene, In This Moment’s debut Beautiful Tragedy was in reality nothing more than a totally generic metalcore album with only Maria Brink’s vocals to distinguish it from every other band of that ilk. As such, I was hardly looking forward to what The Dream might be like. Yet in this, I was remarkably surprised. For their second album, In This Moment has stripped away virtually all of the “core” and almost all of the metal and headed in a melodic rock direction. A lot of bands that try this should be taken away and shot, but for ITM it was precisely the right thing to do.

The Dream is a collection of songs that marry substance and style, as opposed to the debut where trying to be hardcore was everything. Brink is still the very heart and soul of this group (and with those eyes and those tatts, why shouldn’t she be?!), but their new musical approach lets the band shine a bit too. Only “The Great Divide” recalls the metalcore of Beautiful Tragedy, yet also manages to surpass it on every level. It’s much the same story for the album as a whole as In This Moment seeks to broaden their appeal beyond the angst-ridden wallet-chain brigade with a tighter grasp of melody, keener songwriting and a more original outlook.

Producer Kevin Churko had a hand in the music, but despite this The Dream is a clearer indication of where In This Moment wants to be as a band than Beautiful Tragedy was, one actually eager to stand out from the crowd rather than running with it. The elaborate packaging suggests a song-cycle based on some Lewis Carroll-style fantasy world but this seems more a reflection of the album’s title than any of its actual songs except perhaps the last two, for otherwise Brink sings of love, loss and hope. Apart from the maudlin “Into the Light” that sounds like Evanescence at their most irritating, this is an album of good solid modern hard rock. “Her Kiss” has a darkly Gothic feel, “The Great Divide” is the metal track and both “All for You” and “Lost at Sea” are excellent songs.

Until now, In This Moment was just another band, but The Dream shows they really could be something a little bit more.

1. The Rabbit Hole
2. Forever
3. All For You
4. Lost at Sea
5. Mechanical Love
6. Her Kiss
7. Into the Light
8. You Always Believed
9. The Great Divide
10. Velvet Skies
11. The Dream

Rating: 85%

SECRET SPHERE: Sweet Blood Theory

Released: 2008

Before you even get to indulge in the sheer excess of Italian symphonic power metal that is Secret Sphere’s latest album, you get to revel in the sheer vileness of its cover. Two average-looking girls dressed up like skanks and posed in front of a background of lurid greens that looked to me like it was a leftover from MediEvil (after this initial impression, I actually took a closer look at the sign over the uglier chick’s head and it does indeed have Sir Fortesque on it!). I’ve seen some dodgy-looking power metal album covers (like the one from Highland Glory with a dude in a kilt standing on a mountain-top, holding a baby over his head), but this one is possibly the worst. As horrible as it is, it was compelling enough for me to listen to the music to see how bad that would be, and it’s surprisingly OK.

This could be because I’m warming to power metal, but it’s more likely that Secret Sphere are just rather good at it. While it’s true that their sound is completely homogenised and follows the same Helloween-worshipping template of thousands of others, these guys simply do it with considerably more spirit than those busloads of soulless copyists. The melodies are prominent, but not so saccharine that they leave an aftertaste and the symphonic sections sound like there was some thought put into them. The songs are long enough that they can only fit eleven of them into the 51-minute playing time but not so long or elaborate that you find yourself wishing they’d hurry up and get to the point. “Feed My Fire” is a good pop-laced hard rocker that would make be a surefire metal club hit and the power ballad “The Butterfly Dance” was not quite as awful as I expected it to be.

Sweet Blood Theory isn’t a bad album as these things go. Fans of the style will like it, non-fans won’t be converted, and everyone can go away happy. Except the graphic designer. He deserves to be shot.

1. Evil or Divine
2. Stranger in Black
3. From a Dream to a Nightmare
4. Bring On
5. The Shadow of the Room of Pleasure
6. Welcome to the Circus
7. The Butterfly Dance
8. Sweet Blood Theory
9. Feed My Fire
10. All These Words
11. Vampire's Kiss

Rating: 65%

THE AMENTA: N0N

Produced by The Amenta

Released: October 20, 2008

The Amenta's second album is perhaps best summed up by their own press: "N0N is the fusion of white noise, shards of dissonant guitars and dense layers of radio chatter." That is indeed a pretty apt description of what is essentially a very discordant and confronting release. Imagine if Devin Townsend turned evil and kidnapped Ogre from Skinny Puppy and Justin Broadrick from Godflesh and made them work on his diabolical scheme to destroy music. N0N sounds something like that.

Stylistically aligned to the likes of Akercocke, Axis of Perdition, Zyklon and soon-to-be-touring-buddies The Berzerker, The Amenta mixes extreme metal elements like grinding, repetitive guitars and unhallowed vocal shrieks with ambience, white noise and industrial sounds to create something that, while not being quite as original as it's made out to be (see Godflesh and Skinny Puppy references above) is nevertheless far different from virtually everything masquerading as "extreme metal" at present.

N0N is a challenging listen, and I dare anyone to grasp it all the first time they hear it. It isn't catchy, except in rare moments like "Dirt" where an odd dub-style melody line appears. It's coarse and abrasive, with noise and chattering mercilessly overdubbed and multi-tracked as if the guitar parts were being recorded live at a busy railway station. The riffs are slab-like and repetitive, grinding and in some places almost a drone, a lot of the time virtually secondary to the beats and effects. There is a bunch of guests on here, including Alex Pope from Ruins and Jason Medonca from Akercocke, along with a total of two drummers (although with Dave Haley as one of them, one wonders why two would be necessary), two bassists -- neither of whom are particularly prominent -- and apparently six vocalists but in this deliberately faceless band no contribution is distinguishable from any other. It's only because The Amenta is at pains to point out that so many people worked on this that you even know this.

This is an almost impenetrably extreme volume of experimental noise meshed with metal that certainly won't appeal to everyone but those looking to explore the fringes of listenable art will find this truly compelling stuff.

1. On
2. Junky
3. Vermin
4. Entropy
5. Slave
6. Whore
7. Spine
8. Skin
9. Dirt
10. Atrophy
11. Cancer
12. Rape

Rating: 86%

ARCH ENEMY: Tyrants of the Rising Sun - Live in Japan

Directed by Paul B. Smith

Released: November 2008

I really like Arch Enemy. For mine they're one of the best metal bands to have emerged in the last fifteen years. Obviously their success has brought them their fair share of knockers, who like to point out that they can be inconsistent, a little repetitive on occasion and have made a least one rather patchy album, but the same thing can be said for Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and almost anyone else. Angela Gossow usually cops the lion's share of hate for this group, but really most of that is from people who -- despite what they might tell you -- prefer their metal chicks as keyboard players or sopranos in Goth bands. Arch Enemy is a kick ass band, and Tyrants of the Rising Sun shows them doing what they do best: tearing a bunch of Japanese people some new arseholes as they rip through almost two hours of fearsome metal.

Filmed in High Definition with audio in both digital 5.1 and 2.0 and mixed by the inimitable Andy Sneap, this is a veritable feast of modern metal mayhem from start to finish. Featuring songs from their entire career and from every album (except Stigmata), one could hardly ask for a better set. Japan is like a second home for this band and perhaps because of this they pull out all stops, with a virtually flawless show. Gossow sounds awesome and the Amott brothers guitar team is simply breathtaking. Both Christopher and Michael get solo spots, but Daniel Erlandsson's drum solo is actually one of the clear highlights, though perhaps that could be because he ends with a segue into the beginning of Rainbow's "Stargazer" before the band then takes a right turn into "Burning Angel" to kick off the second half of the set.

Japanese crowds can be notoriously polite and low-key, but for Arch Enemy they go totally insane: circle moshes, barrier-surging and singing along with not only the lyrics but the melody lines. Seriously, in "Nemesis" the crowd is almost louder than the band. This helps to make Tyrants of the Rising Sun one of the very best live performance DVDs I've watched in a long, long time. This has excellent sound and perfectly directed visuals, with quite an interesting tour doco as an added bonus and a couple of promo clips (including two versions of "Revolution Begins" which doesn't actually feature in the set), making an all-round killer package no metal fan should be without.

1. Intro/Blood On Your Hands
2. Ravenous
3. Taking Back My Soul
4. Dead Eyes See No Future
5. Dark Insanity
6. The Day You Died
7. Christopher Solo
8. Silverwing
9. Night Falls Fast
10. Daniel Solo
11. Burning Angel
12. Michael Solo (including Intermezzo Liberte)
13. Dead Bury Their Dead
14. Vultures
15. Enemy Within
16. Snowbound
17. Shadows and Dust
18. Nemesis
19. We Will Rise
20. Fields of Desolation/Outro

Extras:

1. The Road to Japan
2. Revolution Begins (original)
3. Revolution Begins (live version)
4. I Will Live Again (promo)

Rating: 95%

LACUNA COIL: Visual Karma (Body, Mind and Soul)

Released: November 2008

I have been a Lacuna Coil fan for a decade, which is probably about twice as long as many of the people who appear on and contribute to this massive DVD release. Originally announced over a year ago with the band asking for video clips and tributes from fans on their own YouTube channel, this is an immaculately produced double volume that shows the public and intimate sides of what is now arguably the world's biggest Goth metal band.

The first disc showcases the band in the live arena. Specifically, their entire set from Wacken 2007 and half a set from Japan's LoudPark festival. While it's true that about 80% of their songs sound pretty much alike, both performances show Lacuna Coil to be an engaging and remarkably heavy live band. Cristina Scabbia may be perfectly happy to share the spotlight both with Andrea Ferro and other members of the band, but the truth is that she is completely mesmerising and impossible to look away from to the point where you just want Ferro to disappear every time he's on screen and the other guys might just as well be standing behind screens or playing their instruments remotely from space. The sound of both shows is less than perfect, with lots of wowing and clipping during the latter half of the Wacken set, although Scabbia's vocals at least sound overdubbed here and there. The LoudPark show is rawer in quality and I actually enjoyed it more, even though Scabbia's sexy little dance during the intro of "Enjoy the Silence" at the Wacken show was the highlight of the whole disc.

Consisting of band member profiles, tour diaries and fan-made tributes, disc two is for the truly dedicated Lacuna Coil nut. The first part is comprised of six home movies from each of the members, of varying quality. Ferro's personal tour of Milan is poorly produced and just not very interesting. Bass player Marco Coti Zelati's self-portrait of himself getting hammered is somewhat amusing, but Marco Biazza's romance with his own guitar is just bizarre. Once again Scabbia proves why she is the real star of this band, with a genuinely warm piece about a benefit she organised that funded a new well in a Kenyan village. Most of the rest of the disc is prime filler material, unless you happened to be one of the ten people who's video clips made the cut and are included or you were interested enough in watching the winning entries. Personally, I wasn't so I didn't even bother with most of it. Anything with Cristina being totally candid is a joy to watch, and not just because she's gorgeous. The woman is a true star.

Visual Karma is a bit of an epic, especially if you try to watch the whole thing all at once. The live footage and Karma Code clips would be more than enough for the average fan; the rest of it is really for Coilophiles only.

DVD 1:

Wacken 2007

1. Intro

2. To The Edge

3. Fragments Of Faith

4. Swamped

5. In Visible Light

6. Fragile

7. Closer

8. Senzafine

9. What I See

10. Enjoy The Silence

11. Heavens A Lie

12. Our Truth

Loudpark 2007:

1. Intro/To The Edge

2. Swamped

3. Closer

4. Within Me

5. Daylight Dancer

6. Our Truth

Videos:

1. Our Truth

2. Closer

3. Enjoy the Silence

4. Within Me

DVD 2

1. Simple As Water (Cristina)

2. Inside Milan (Andrea)

3. The Leaning Journey Of Pizza (Marco B)

4. 7-Seven... Strings Life (Maus)

5. The Real Thing (Marco C Z)

6. Enter The Drummer (Christiano)

Behind The Scenes:

Australian Tour 2007

First Time In Japan

Making Of The Our Truth Video

Making Of The Closer Video

Fan Submissions:

Lacuna Coil's introductory clip

Empty Spiral Interview

To The Edge Remix Contest

Inside The Spiral

Links

Rating: 75%

WARMEN: Beyond Abilities

Produced by Janne Wirman
Released: 2002

Janne Wirman is the guy who brings the 70s over-the-top keys wizardry of Jon Lord and Don Airey back to metal with Children of Bodom and on Beyond Abilities he stepped out on his own again with his Warmen project. Like the first album, this Warmen excursion is grounded in a traditional metal style with virtually unrestrained virtuoso playing from Wirman and his guitarists, brother Antii and Sami Virtanen, trading licks and bouncing extended solo breaks off one another in an audacious display of musical proficiency.

Whereas Unknown Soldier was almost exclusively an instrumental set, however, Beyond Abilities features vocal tracks on five of its eleven cuts. Somewhat appropriately, Timo Kotipelto from Stratovarius appears on two of them, both of which could quite easily have come from one of his band’s more recent (and by that we mean less than brilliant) albums. Sinergy’s Kimberly Goss makes a reappearance here too, vocalising the hard rock styled ‘Hidden’ that contains what is almost Night Ranger’s riff from ‘This Boy Needs to Rock’, as well as the cover of Heart’s ‘Alone’, which seems downright incongruous here but does highlight her range if nothing else.

‘Dawn’ with Pasi Nykanen at the microphone is almost the perfect progressive metal track however with quite a wide musical scope being compressed into a single unit and perhaps marks the high point of the album with the exception of ‘Salieri Strikes Back’ and ‘Finale’ both of which basically dwarf everything else on the set with their sheer awe-inspiring ingenuity.

Despite Beyond Abilities being a rather inconsistent album, a slow beginning with a strong second half broken up by something inexplicable (‘Alone’! Why?), it is still a worthwhile listen for those who like to indulge in overindulgence.

1. Beyond Abilities
2. Spark
3. Hidden
4. Trip to...
5. Dawn
6. Singer's Chance
7. Alone
8. Confessions
9. Salieri Strikes Back
10. War of Worlds
11. Finale

Rating: 78%