SYMPHONITY: Voice From the Silence

Produced by Libor Krivak
Released: 15 August 2008

Symphonic power metal and I don't have the greatest of relationships, so you would have thought that a band called Symphonity was just asking for trouble. After all, the only reason I decided to listen to their album at all is because it was one of only two that came in a recent promo package that didn't have voiceover watermarks all over it (the other one was the latest Journey album, which is one CD I would have expected to have them). Imagine my surprise, then, when I realised that I actually rather enjoyed this.

Formerly known as Nemesis (one of the most overused band names ever), Symphonity is a Czech band whose name immediately tells you what sort of music they play. And on Voice from the Silence they don't exactly stretch the boundaries of symphonic Euro-power metal very far (or at all), but they do string a few decent songs together, have a singer with both a good range and a fairly ballsy style and haven't forgotten that metal is guitar-based music. Originality is not a strong point and many of the songs are outright Gamma Ray/Helloween worship, especially tracks like "Gates of Fantasy" and "Searching You". But Symphonity do it rather more convincingly than most, with some nice touches thrown in like the extended guitar-keyboard duelling in "Give Me Your Helping Hand" and veteran vocalist Olaf Hayer (Dionysus, Luca Turilli, et. al.) is rather more than just a Kai Hansen clone, with a solid mid-range and a good high voice that doesn't sound like he's about to go off-key or stretch too far. The longer tracks are nicely structured and "Evening Star" works towards its extended orchestral section so it fits instead of sounding like it was just chucked in to make it longer or to show how in-tune the band is with their classical side.

Voice from the Silence won't win any points for being groundbreaking or different, but it is a pretty solid entry in its genre and fans of symphonic metal will love it.

1. La Morale dell' Immorale
2. Give Me Your Helping Hand
3. Gates of Fantasy
4. Bring Us the Light
5. Salvation Dance
6. The Silence - Memories (Pt I)
7. The Silence - In Silence Forsaken (Pt II)
8. The Silence - Relief Reverie (Pt III)
9. Searching You
10. Evening Star
11. Afterlife

Rating: 65%

PSYCHRIST: Debauching the Minions

Produced by Astennu and Lachlan Mitchell
Released: 2002

Psychrist were ten-year veterans of Australian death metal when this album was unleashed, and Debauching the Minions was ample testament to a band that managed to stick around so long, through shaky line-ups and bad record deals. Each new release saw them surpassing the one before in malice and intensity. Debauching the Minions is nothing less than a monolith of pure brutality, a destructive, unforgiving slab of furious hatred.

A crack of thunder heralds the approach of ‘Scourge’ like a malevolent storm, and so it is: blazing black metal riffing with ultra-gutteral demonic death metal vocal rumbles. Some bands try mixing death and black and fudge it, but Psychrist had no such problems, combining the best and most extreme elements of both styles seamlessly and thus making for an incredibly crushing and blasting set of tracks. The likes of ‘Godfucked’, ‘Haven of Betrayal’ and the title track are absolutely immense, unceasing walls of hate that conjure images of some demonic horde laying seige to the gates of heaven themselves and a new version of ‘The Shroud of Profanity’ brings the album to a cataclysmic finale, with guitarist Yuri Ward’s acoustic closer ‘Harbouring the Fire’ the only respite from the violence.

Debauching the Minions is a masterpiece of Australian metal that may be difficult to find but well worth seeking.

1. Scourge
2. Depraved Humanity
3. Haven of Betrayal
4. Debauching the Minions
5. Godfucked
6. Dead Emotion
7. Severance
8. Shroud of Profanity
9. Harbouring the Fire

Rating: 94%

KOTIPELTO: Waiting for the Dawn

Released: 2002

Someone once criticised Bruce Dickinson for making a solo album that sounded exactly like the other band he had been in, and while that was true, it could be sort of forgiven because eventually his albums were better than theirs. Timo Kotipelto is best known as being the singer for Stratovarius and his debut solo effort bears little or no distinguishing features from that group.

Unlike Bruce Dickinson, however, Timo seems to be running on a zero level of inspiration that’s even spilled over onto Derek Riggs, whose surprisingly unspectacular art graces the cover here. It’s true that Kotipelto has gathered a breathtaking array of Europe’s finest metalheads about him to create his Ancient Egyptian myth cycle -- some of whom include Roland Grapow, Michael Romeo, Sami Virtanen and Janne Warman -- but it’s also true that even they can’t save this from being exactly what the promo sheets promised Waiting for the Dawn would not be, and that’s bland, boring rock.

Personally, I can’t stand Timo’s voice because sometimes he sounds like he sings flat on purpose, to see if anyone will notice, but that’s not why I think this is ordinary. I think is ordinary because it is ordinary, and that’s that.

1. Intro
2. Travel Through Time
3. Beginning
4. Lord of Eternity
5. Knowledge and Wisdom
6. Battle of the Gods
7. Beauty Has Come
8. Vizier
9. Chosen by Re
10. Waiting for the Dawn
11. Arise
12. Movement of the Nile

Rating: 30%

DIO: Killing the Dragon

Released: 2002

After spending a few years experimenting with different things and mucking around with his basic style in the mid-90s, Dio's Magica album was much vaunted as a comeback of sorts, but turned out to be a turgid exercise in self-indulgence that was disappointing to say the least and it could have been argued that after 40 years in the recording business it was time for him to give it away. Then this album appeared, and the title track was barely halfway through before I realised that the little guy still had it in him.

Killing the Dragon hearkens back to Dio’s glory days of the early-mid 1980s, making little or no deviation from the songwriting formula he’s been using since at least his Rainbow days and perhaps earlier. The album maintains his obsession with metaphors taking the shapes of dragons and fantasy themes (although there’s no mention of rainbows at all) and wraps them all up in tightly-played commercial heavy metal that, while generally mid-paced thanks to Dio’s age-old predeliction for grand plodding, rocks out on occasion when tracks like “Rock and Roll” call for it. The introduction of Doug Alridch on guitar also added a some spark.

Dio hardly reinvented himself here as he had tried to do with the likes of Angry Machines; instead it was more of a renaissance, showing that he’s a true master of metal and even as he headed for his mid-60s, he could still churn out a good album.

1. Killing the Dragon
2. Along Comes a Spider
3. Scream
4. Better in the Dark
5. Rock & Roll
6. Push
7. Guilty
8. Throw Away Children
9. Before the Fall
10. Cold Feet

Rating: 71%

RED DESCENDING: Where Dreams Come to Die

Produced by Red Descending
Released: 2008

Where Dreams Come to Die is the debut album from Perth band Red Descending. Their overall style could be labelled "melodic death metal" I suppose but in essence they seem to be a group that is a little difficult to pigeonhole so conveniently. The album was mastered in Stockholm, a move that would appear somewhat unnecessary considering the quality of domestic mastering facilities these days, unless it was to provide some direct connection to Sweden that couldn't have been recognised in the music itself, and yes, the music has a very Swedish sound to it.

At first I thought Where Dreams Come to Die was going to be an album of either keys-heavy prog or symphonic power metal, because the most obvious aspect of Red Descending's music is the sheer predominence of the keyboards. Imagine if Dark Tranquillity buried the guitars way down in the mix so only Brändstrom and Stanne could be heard, then instead of just playing the melody, have the keyboards do all the main riffing also. The melodies totally overpower any real heaviness in Red Descending's music, resulting in a very symphonic and melodic approach like Gothenburg death metal with the death metal taken out except for the harsh, rather one-dimensional vocals. None of this would be of any consequence if Where Dreams Come to Die wasn't also rather bland and generic. Of the ten songs on this album, the only one that really reached out and grabbed me was "Valhalla", a speedy instrumental that sounded like DragonForce playing Viking metal. Otherwise, the rest of the tracks just sort of flowed by without much of an impact. There wasn't any bad songs but no real highlights either, which made the album seem to drag on for much longer than its 47 minute playing time. Overall, Where Dreams Come to Die suffers from a lack of diversity both in the songwriting and in Bernard Shaw's vocal delivery and is rather devoid of any real hooks.

I've always had a pretty high opinion of most metal from Western Australia and while this four piece group hasn't tarnish the state's reputation in that regard, Where Dreams Come to Die didn't really raise the bar either

1. Building My Weakness
2. Century
3. The Grand Memory
4. Slaughter Falls
5. Descend
6. Fragile Nation
7. Deceived Again
8. Departure
9. Valhalla
10. Landscape

Rating: 50%

BLACK MAJESTY: Sands of Time

Produced by Endel Rivers and Black Majesty

Released: 2003

This debut album by Black Majesty marked them as something very special in the power metal arena. From the three-track sampler I was priveleged enough to hear a year or so before the complete album was released I knew this would be good, but even that didn’t prepare me for the experience of hearing this in full.

Sands of Time is such a well-crafted blend of European style power metal and Queensrÿche-like progressive metal that it’s almost hard to believe. The cover art is a bit unfortunate, making it look like the dozens of second rate acts that litter the market, because this is one of the better albums of its kind you will hear. The promo disc’s stand out cut ‘Fall of the Reich’ opens proceedings at a power-metal flavoured faster pace; however, the balance of Sands of Time takes on a distinctly progressive feel and style, reflected in the complex arrangements of the songs and a truly outstanding vocal performance from John Cavaliere. Musically too, Black Majesty are far more than simply impressive, with a typically Australian ballsier edge than their European counterparts. The guitar solos in ‘Journey’s End’, for example, are simply breathtaking; indeed the work of Hanny Mohammed and Steve Janevski on this album is up there with any of the great metal guitar teams that you could mention.

Cavaliere is also helped out occasionally by Silvio Massaro of Vanishing Point and the towering range of Eyefear/ex-Pegazus vocalist Danny Cecati, and their contributions do nothing but further the already significant appeal of this recording. Sands of Time is a masterpiece.

1. Fall of the Reich
2. Legacy
3. Guardian
4. Sands of Time
5. Destination
6. Journey's End
7. Colliding Worlds
8. No Sanctuary
9. Beyond Reality
10. Lady of the Lake

Rating: 90%

COLD CHISEL: East

Produced by Mark Opitz and Cold Chisel
Released: 1980

In mid-1977, Cold Chisel was a hard rocking blues band that couldn't get a record deal. By the end of 1980, they were the biggest-selling act in the country. This album is why. A finely-crafted slab of contemporary radio-friendly rock and pop, East never faltered from its opening seconds and remains to this day one of the best Australian albums ever made.

Cold Chisel's previous album Breakfast at Sweethearts had taken the rough edges off the band's brash sound and begun to display its pop sensibilities. With East, the slick production of Mark Opitz enhanced them even further. That all five of the band's members contributed songs for the first time also helped to create a bunch of tunes that continue to resonate through the national psyche.

East succeeds because its subjects are so familiar to its audience. They are simple songs about the everyday experience: "Every night when I come home/I settle down to prime-time limbo," sings Jimmy Barnes in "Ita"; on "Standing on the Outside" he dreams about robbing a TAB and setting himself up in a personal Paradise somewhere. Other songs are about dreams come unstuck, like the jaded protagonist of "Cheap Wine", who just leaves it all behind for "cheap wine and a three days' growth". "Four Walls" is a sorrowful piano ballad about life behind bars and the emotional "Choir Girl" follows a young woman through an abortion.

Of course it wouldn't be Cold Chisel without straight out rocking, and the pensive mood of the ballads is balanced by the brash rockabilly of Barnes' "Rising Sun", the smouldering, political "Star Hotel" and the ragged "My Turn to Cry". Every song was memorable, as East struck the perfect balance of all the band's moods. Ian Moss' "Never Before" became the first song ever played on Triple J, Barnes still performs "Rising Sun" in his live shows and Phil Small's sweet pop ditty "My Baby" remains a radio staple to this day.

28 years later, East is still the perfect Australian rock album.

1. Standing on the Outside
2. Never Before
3. Choir Girl
4. Rising Sun
5. My Baby
6. Tomorrow
7. Cheap Wine
8. Best Kept Lies
9. Ita
10. Star Hotel
11. Four Walls
12. My Turn to Cry

Rating: 100%

VANISHING POINT: Embrace the Silence

Released: 2005

Vanishing Point spent five years working on this album through lean periods, personnel reshuffles and battles with former managers and labels. But it seems that every moment and every tribulation paid off. Embrace the Silence is a monster of an album, with 13 songs and a playing time of almost 80 minutes as well as one of the most striking cover illustrations of any Australian metal album.

It isn't that often I’ll listen to the same album five times in a row but that’s exactly what happened with Embrace the Silence. This is a majestic, mesmerising listening experience. It is Vanishing Point’s songwriting and true mastery of melody that makes this record. This time however they’ve made the guitars significantly crunchier and heavier and combined them with stunning production and Leonard Koplias’ Dream Theater-inspired keyboards that surge and swell and fill out every track. Previous Vanishing Point releases haven’t been known for extended guitar soloing as twin melodies have been the focus and that’s the case once again, but now and then a simple, understated lead break does emerge. The fine singing of Silvio Massaro completes the package. With more than a passing vocal resemblance to Jon Stevens, particularly on the ballads “Embrace” and “As I Reflect”, he is one of the finest singers of melodic metal in the world today.

This is a masterpiece, one of the finest releases of 2005.

1. Hollow
2. My Virtue
3. If Only I
4. Live to Live
5. Embraced
6. Season of Sundays
7. Once a Believer
8. Reason
9. Breathe
10. Somebody Save Me
11. Insight
12. A Life Less
13. As I Reflect

Rating: 95%

YAKUZA: Way of the Dead

Released: 2002

Yakuza sounds rather like what you would get if you crossed Meshuggah, God Forbid and the Dillinger Escape Plan with a jazz band. If it’s hard to get your head around what that would sound like, their second album Way of the Dead doesn’t really make it any easier!

Unique and challenging are words that are bandied about a lot by bands and labels in an effort to get their acts to stand out, but in this case there’s really no better description, because Yakuza really is like no other band. With all that said, Yakuza may not appeal to the average listener. Way of the Dead has far too many twists and turns, subtle surprises, tempo changes and even style and mood changes that anyone who just wants to rock out will most likely flee in confusion. It is, in fact, quite difficult to listen to for the first (or even second) time with off-kilter melodies, strange drum patterns and bizarre saxophone intrusions, but the more art-minded prog and avant-garde audience will warm to Yakuza very quickly.

Capped off with an incredible (and perhaps a little pretentious) 43-minute ambient jazz jam, Way of the Dead is a truly challenging musical achievement.

1. Vergasso
2. Miami Device
3. Yama
4. Signal 42
5. TMS
6. Chicago Typewriter
7. Obscurity
8. 0100011110011

Rating: 82%

NAPALM DEATH: The Code is Red... Long Live the Code

Produced by Russ Russell

Released: 2005

With the sad demise of Nasum, this was without doubt the political grind album of 2005. As the world seemed to turn more to the Right every day and as the spectre of an Orwellian nightmare loomed over the West like never before, it probably wasn’t that surprising that Napalm Death would unleash one of the angriest volumes they had recorded in a very long time.

Stripped down to a four piece following the departure of (the now sadly late) Jesse Pintado, the originators of grindcore make a partial return to the nihilistic sound of their earlier days here, and it’s a devastating, unrelenting assault on conservatism and Right Wing hypocrisy and falsehood, an unbridled and unyielding attack on the powerbrokers in Washington and their fabricated war on freedoms masquerading as a battle to save them. If there is one single current album that encapsulated the common resentment of conflicts based on lies and the restrictions of liberties for the benefit of security, The Code is Red… is it. This is socio-political grind at its best: “So called champions of the poor/Tax us against the wall” Barney Greenway roars in “Pay for the Privilege of Breathing”, “Full frontal assault on your choice/to spurn the flag/Waves of retribution awaiting those who dissent” he continues in their condemnation of the Patriot Act, “Climate Controllers”.

Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, Jeff Walker from Carcass and California’s favourite dissident Jello Biafra all add their weight to this raging slab, arguably Napalm Death’s finest moment in a decade.

1. Silence is Deafening
2. Right You Are
3. Diplomatic Immunity
4. The Code is Red... Long Live the Code
5. Climate Controllers
6. Instruments of Persuasion
7. The Great and the Good
8. Sold Short
9. All Hail the Grey Dawn
10. Vegetative State
11. Pay for the Privilege of Breathing
12. Pledge Yourself to You
13. Striding Purposefully Backwards
14. Morale
15. Our Pain is Their Power

Rating: 90%