PORCUPINE TREE: The Incident

Produced by Porcupine Tree
Released: September 2009

With The Incident, Porcupine Tree continue to their affirm their status as the pre-eminent progressive rock band in the world today. While their style continues to creep closer and closer into metal territory thanks to Steven Wilson's growing obsession with that genre's more experimental outfits like Opeth and Gojira, they remain a band with a style uniquely their own and one which refuses to be pinned down.


Porcupine Tree paint with a broad palatte and over the course of its 55 minutes the 14-part title track journeys through rock, folk, metal and industrial elements. This part of the album is an exploration of the modern media phenomonon of dehumanising traumatic events, a suite of tracks about the beginnings and endings that erupt from sudden and often violent life-changing events. Musically then, this first CD is like a modern reimagining of Pink Floyd's Animals album crossed with Hemispheres by Rush, blended with bombastic guitar outbursts and grooves borrowed from TOOL ("Occam's Razor", "Circle of Manias") occasional Reznor-ish electronic moments ("The Incident") and extended introspective passages like "The Seance" and the middle section of the 12-minute "Time Flies", a track that in itself represents a microcosm of the entire album. After erupting with explosions of guitar, the first part of the album closes with "I Drive the Hearse" drifting quietly away on rafts of synths and electric pianos. Throughout, Porcupine Tree ties everything together virtually seamlessly by relying on the power of Wilson's songwriting rather than overindulgent displays of their obviously vast musical ability, and while it's very apparent that "The Incident" is very much Wilson's project, he never overplays his hand, always allowing his fellow bandmates plenty of space to add their own individual touches.

The album's second CD contains four songs totally unrelated both of to "The Incident" and to each other, however they all share the same sense of weary foreboding. They also explore Porcupine Tree's heavier and (if that's possible) even darker side, particularly "Bonnie the Cat" with its menacing guitars and Wilson's equally threatening, whispered promise: "I know what will be". These tracks, while never approaching the same level of heaviness, to some degree do reflect Wilson's Opethian muse and prehaps foretell the coming of an even heavier and bleaker Porcupine Tree to come. Whatever the case, The Incident maintains the band's place at the forefront of intelligent rock music and easily matches it with the best releases of this year.

CD 1:

1. The Incident - i. Occam's Razor ii. The Blind House iii. Great Expectations iv. Kneel and Disconnect v. Drawing the Line vi. The Incident vii. Your Unpleasant Family viii. The Yellow Windows of the Evening Train ix. Time Flies x. Degree Zero of Liberty xi. Octane Twisted xii. The Seance xiii. Circle of Manias xiv. I Drive the Hearse

CD 2:

1. Flicker
2. Bonnie the Cat
3. Black Dahlia
4. Remember Me Lover

Rating: 95%

STEVE VAI: Where the Wild Things Are

Produced by Steve Vai
Released: 2009

Albums from shredders have been problematic for me in the past. As someone who isn't a guitar player, they often come across as little more than showing off with minimal substance and no real appeal to anyone other than aspiring guitarists; rudderless, ego-driven wankfests that boggle the mind with skill for a while until you realise the guy is really just playing scales backwards through an upside-down vocoder or something silly like that.

Having learned his craft from mentors and friends like Frank Zappa and Joe Satriani, Steve Vai is a very different proposition. With his vast array of stylistic ability and influences, Vai is an instrumentalist that even people who aren't flash guitarists can enjoy, a man who understands that the demonstration of ability is more than filling every space with as many notes as possible or showing off every trick you learned at guitar school at every available opportunity. Recorded live in Minneapolis in 2007, Where the Wild Things Are confirms Vai's status with a consummate virtuoso performance, ably supported and abetted by a superb five-piece band that includes members of prog groups like Dali's Dilemma and Mullmuzzler. A blend of cuts from his studio works -- mainly Real Illusions: Reflections -- and new tracks being played for the first time, the album tends to highlight Vai's blues and jazz-fusion sides. For outright shredding, there's the eleven-minute centrepiece "Freak Show Excess" but on "Fire Wall" he steps out with a heavy, bluesy shuffle featuring his smoky vocals and "Tender Surrender" shows a more lyrical side to his playing. Vai of course also lets the rest of his band to add their own instrumental prowess and when the entire sextet kicks in together they truly shine.

As engaging as the set is though, by the back half of Where the Wild Things Are, I did find my attention wandering a bit, but at 78 minutes, it is quite a long haul for most but the truly dedicated (and the DVD is longer still). Nevertheless, Steve Vai once again shows that rather than just being a flash guitar player, he is an outstanding and gifted musician and entertainer.

1. Paint Me Your Face
2. Now We Run
3. Oooo
4. Building the Church
5. Tender Surrender
6. Band Intros
7. Fire Wall
8. Freak Show Excess
9. Die to Live
10. All About Eve
11. Gary 7
12. Treasure Island
13. Angel Food
14. Taurus Bulba
15. Par Brahm

Rating: 85%

NUMBER ONE IN HEAVEN: The Heroes Who Died for Rock N Roll

by Jeremy Simmonds
Published by Penguin

I've been away for a couple of weeks, and returned to find a big mountain of new CDs waiting for me to listen to and review. Since I've yet had time to give them more than a cursory ear, today's post is a book review I did a couple of years ago for a massive title called Number One in Heaven. Jeremy Simmonds' enormous volume is an indispensible resource for anyone with an interest in rock and popular music as one of the main cultural phenomonons of the last half-century. In its 500-plus pages, Simmonds collects hundreds of rock obituaries, presenting them in an easy-to-find month-by-month format for every year between 1965 and the end of 2005 and in doing so creates an engrossingly readable, occasionally humourous and often sad book.

This weighty tome unveils a lot of the mystery and myths surrounding the passing of some of the world's greatest stars and gives column space to many, many lesser known ones. It also reveals which group boasts the most dead members (doo-wop vocal group The Inkspots, as it turns out, although Lynyrd Skynyrd and T-Rex must come close by now), which group lost the most members in one go (Reba McEntire's backing band, who lost seven at once in a plane crash in 1991), and plenty of strange co-incidences, bizarre suicides, accidental deaths and murders. He also includes small snapshots of people who came remarkably close to death but somehow survived, like Nikki Sixx' monumentally stupid double overdose and Rick Allen's limb-severing car smash. The end of each year's section also features a small round-up of other lesser-known figures. This allows Simmonds to include even lesser lights who would otherwise be completely forgotten, but it also reveals a strange and confusing omission that will be elaborated upon shortly.

Often books like this will gloss over or even completely ignore many of the those who have fallen in the metal world, but Simmonds (for the most part) doesn't forget them either. From this perspective, most of the bigger names are included: Dimebag, Cliff and Randy, of course, the Mayhem pair of Dead and Euronymous, plus Steamin' Steve Clark from Def Leppard, Cozy Powell, Randy Castillo, Razzle from Hanoi Rocks, Gary Driscoll from Rainbow, and Piggy from Voivod. Paul Samson, Paul Baloff, Rhett Forester from Riot, Megadeth's Gar Samuelson, Somnium from Finntroll, David Wayne from Metal Church and all three of Body Count's growing body count also get space. Savatage's Criss Oliva and Dave Pritchard from Armored Saint even get mentions.

Simmonds loses significant Brownie points, however, for the incomprehensible omission of Chuck Schuldiner. That such a highly influential character from the development of metal could be totally ignored in such an otherwise excellently researched and all-encompassing book seems not only inexcusable, but inexplicable, especially when he's thought to include Steve MacDonald from Gorguts, two members of Hallow's Eve, a bloke from a band called Doom that even I've never heard of and some guy who was in Blue Öyster Cult for about ten minutes in about 1971 and never recorded anything. Even if Simmonds knew very little about Chuck, a music journalist of his reputation should have at the very least known both who he was and that he'd died, and when. This is Number One in Heaven's unforgivable flaw, and the thing that stop this otherwise brilliant book from scoring the highest mark possible.

NB: There's an associated website address given in the introduction that the author has included for readers to suggest corrections, but when I tried it so I could prod him about Schuldiner, it didn't work.

Rating: 90%

BLACK ASYLUM: Anthem of Order

Produced by Darren Jenkins and Black Asylum

Released: 2009

Wyong lads Black Asylum have been moving pretty quickly to the fore of the scene in their local area since they kicked off about four years ago. Last weekend they warmed up the crowd for Cannibal Corpse and apparently did a sterling job and in the past they've opened for everyone from Alchemist and Psycroptic to Parkway Drive. 2008's full length Truths of the Blood suffered from a lack of direction and some songwriting lapses, but it was obvious there was a really good band hiding away in there.

So it is then that "Anthem of Order" shits on it royally. As decent as Truths was in spite of its inherent weaknesses, this EP almost sounds like it was made by a totally different band. Black Asylum has done everything right here. Instead of a full length that tries to be everything to everyone, this time they've picked a handful of tracks that show what they do best. And with production duties handled by the guy who was once the drummer for Australia's answer to Pantera, Black Asylum had a veritable expert around to help them crystallise their vision. That vision: modern groove-laden thrash.

"Smoke and Mirrors" gets things underway in precisely the right direction and things only continue to get better from there. "25 to Life" and "Face the Silence" take the opportunity to step up into near-death metal territory and "The Last Day" has an enormous bouncing groove that refuses to be pacified. Occasionally a glimmer of their influences shows through -- a riff here, a melody line there -- but it's never for long enough for Black Asylum to sound like anyone in particular. Thick, catchy riffs and grooves, a stomping rhythm section, sharp soloing and raspy vocals that can also effect a nice croon, "Anthem of Order" is a fine example of Aussie metal done right.

1. Smoke and Mirrors
2. 25 to Life
3. Face the Silence
4. The Last Day
5. Subtlety
6. Black as the Crow

Rating: 82%

RIVERSIDE: Anno Domini High Definition

Released: July 2009

A few years back I had the unpleasant experience of being exposed to Pain of Salvation's convoluted, bewildering and absurdly over-indulgent Be album, an indecipherable and unwieldly piece of shit that made me stop listening to anything remotely like it for quite some time (actually there is nothing remotely like it. It's like the Zardoz of prog). That was until I discovered Polish band Riverside. Essentially, they are all the stuff you love about prog, and nothing you hate. Like the equally wonderful Porcupine Tree, they restored my faith in this genre. Three albums later, not only do they continue to shine, they have created nothing short of a masterpiece.

It's really no coincidence that I mention Porcupine Tree, because this Warsaw quartet's music has distinct similarities to them as well as to Dream Theater, especially with respect to Michal Lapaj's keyboard sound and in Mariusz Duda they have a vocalist to rival Daniel Gildenlow. Since Lapaj joined after their first album, Riverside has been closing in on a more metallic style and Anno Domini High Definition certainly steers them in a heavier direction without compromising the various melodic, gloomy and atmospheric ambient elements they have used in the past.

"Hyperactive" floats in on a melancholy piano melody until marching drumbeats, swirly keys and an unmistakably metal guitar riff begins to fade in from about the 1:08 mark, soon afterwards joined by Duda's dark, warm vocals. Like the best prog, a dominant aspect of this song's sound is the Hammond organ and even later, in the eleven-minute "Left Out", Lapaj busts out into some surging, pompous breaks that recall the greatness of Deep Purple. "Driven to Destruction" is a little reminiscent of TOOL, with the main riff a slight variation of the one from "Forty Six and 2" and while distinctly more keyboard-driven, the song itself moves through the same kind of dark moodiness the American progsters explore. "Egoist Hedonist" is a composite piece made up of three movements, the swinging, upbeat middle segment of which is joined by a horns section; the last part is perhaps the album's most metal moment.

ADHD's final two tracks run well over ten minutes apiece with both Lapaj and guitarist Piotr Grudzinski turning in some eloquent and tasteful soloing and the band weaving all their influences into a cohesive and decidedly original sound. "Hybrid Times" is perhaps the high point with Duda's jazz-influenced bass break leading to a crashing crescendo of 70s pomp rock organ and metal guitars, followed a little later by trade-offs between Lapaj and Grudzinski that leads into a darker, atmospheric coda of voices and theremin.

Riverside has been seeking to bridge the gap between progressive rock and progressive metal for several years now and with ADHD they have at last achieved it. Their best album yet.

1. Hyperactive
2. Driven to Destruction
3. Egoist Hedonist
4. Left Out
5. Hybrid Times

Rating: 98%

ROLLERBALL: Submarine

Produced by Dave Talon, Luke Earthling and Jeff Lovejoy

Released: 2009

It'd been a long time since I'd heard anything from Rollerball, so to say that I was pleased to receive their new album is a bit of an understatement. Long time veterans of Australia's first wave of the retro rock movement, they seemed to have dropped off the map for a while after Oversize came out almost five years ago. I was looking forward to some of their fantastically heavy-riffing rock once again, and Submarine definitely did not disappoint.

When the title track ripped loose with the exact same riff as The Hanging Tree's "Free Ride" (one of the best songs by one of the best Sydney bands of the 90s) I just knew this was going to rule. Submarine is nothing less than a thoroughly enjoyable, truly rock-worthy collection of big groovy psychedelic stoner rock, acid blues and biker metal. The band's influences are all over this: "We Always Slide" steals part of its riff from Blue Öyster Cult's "Divine Wind" and elsewhere you can hear Kyuss, AC/DC, early Led Zeppelin and... is that Canned Heat in there somewhere? But this matters not. Because this is rock, raw and honest, where originality takes a backseat to honesty and heart. And this isn't just shameless regurgitation like Jet or the massively over-rated Wolfmother; listening to Submarine you realise how much of a shame it is that those two bands have been elevated to Aussie rock royalty while the Rollerballs of the world plug away in relative obscurity while doing pretty much the same thing only much better. Why do we need Jet when Rollerball can deliver punchy radio rock anthems like "B-Ray Boogie" and "Seasoar" and "Tame Existence" wanders around in 70s proto-prog wonderland like Wolfmother only dream they can. Dave Talon unleashes the sort of riffs that Malcolm Young or Jimmy Page would envy with a huge fat guitar tone that either of them would die for and Tenpin Bolan's versatile vocals shift gears through melodic croon to raw rocking blues growl to a falsetto without a stretch, and with "Never a Rodeo" they have concocted an immense stoner epic that Josh Homme would be proud to call his own.

Submarine is a fantastic rock album. If you like fantastic rock albums, you must have this.

1. Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
2. Submarine
3. Seasoar
4. Youth Ballad (Back to Hell)
5. Your Lullaby
6. We Always Slide
7. The Devil's Reprise
8. Run Aground
9. Tame Existence
10. B-Ray Boogie
11. Never A Rodeo

Rating: 98%

RAVAGE: The End of Tomorrow

Released: 2009

With an old-school name like Ravage and a wonderfully old-school cover by the legendary Ed Repka, The End of Tomorrow held a lot of promise. But by only halfway through the first track I was already disappointed. Halfway through the first track! Having kicked around on the Boston scene for 14 years and been championed by no less a figure than Metal Archives’ notoriously elitist Ultraboris (who helped them release a string of badly-recorded live albums, one of which was done instrumentally when their vocalist failed to show for the gig!), Ravage finally hit the jackpot with a signing to Metal Blade earlier this year. Frankly, I fail to see what the fuss is about. There’s a philosophy that suggests that in a market flooded by unremarkable, samey-sounding modern bands that anything retro must naturally be good simply because it is retro, but this is one album that proves such thinking is nothing but bullshit. There’s a reason why modern metal sounds the way it does, and that’s because if it sounded like Ravage no one would listen to it except guys in their 40s reminiscing about their first Diamond Head gig.

Despite the modern production which at least gives it some crunch, The End of Tomorrow is nothing more than a collection of second-rate, mid-paced, dated-sounding, uninteresting heavy metal. It reminds me of bands like Saxon, Raven or Anvil, but at their worst. Put simply, the band just never gets out of second gear. Al Ravage’s vocals are OK in that he can carry a tune, but the tunes don’t go anywhere and the only song that’s in any way memorable is a Judas Priest cover. Really, it isn’t hard to see why it’s taken Ravage so long to score a release on a recognised label, and if this is the best they can do it might a long, long time before they have another one.

1. The Halls of Madness
2. Reign Fall
3. Freedom Fighter
4. Damn Nation
5. The Shredder
6. Into the Shackles
7. In Shattered Dreams
8. The Nightmare's Hold: Pt 1
9. The Night Crawler
10. The Nightmare's Hold: Pt 2
11. Grapes of Wrath
12. The End of Tomorrow

Rating: 43%

VOYAGER: I Am the ReVolution

Released: September 25

Voyager have moved into more melodic territory with each subsequent release, and with I am the ReVolution, their third full-length release, they appear to be on the very brink of departing from the realms of metal and into other avenues of melodic rock. This new album seems to represent the same point in the band's development as A Fine Day to Exit did for Anathema--but with considerably more direction and focus in the songwriting department--or, perhaps even more accurately, where Paradise Lost went with One Second.

Without completely losing sight of their heritage as a metal band, there is an almost over-riding emphasis on the synth-pop element of their sound on this album. The shiny production certainly stresses the more melodic aspects ahead of the heavier ones and apart from some darker growling on a couple of tracks, Nephil's harmonious mid-range singing brings to mind those of sophisticated Euro-pop acts. Indeed, there were times when I am the ReVolution reminded me of no one more than Depeche Mode: the pop ballad "In My Arms" sounds so much like them I had to check to make sure it wasn't actually a cover. The brief interlude "Without a Sigh" is another Mode-esque moment and the title track that follows it sounds strangely like David Gahan doing guest vocals with Dream Theater.

The intriguing mix of styles and influences is introduced immediately on "Land of Lies" with Nephil's variously sung, whispered and growled vocals playing off against intermingling guitar melody lines and synth solos; this and "Total Existance Failure" (sic) with its more predominant riffing are perhaps the most "metal" songs on the whole album, and while there are metal aspects on almost all the songs, Voyager plays around with so many other styles that defining them as simply a metal band just doesn't seem right. "The Devil in Me" is simply fantastic symphonic rock with a hook in the chorus that Martin Gore would kill to write, and the same could almost be said for the likes of "On the Run from the World" and "Times Like These", all of which are virtually flawless examples of metal riffs combined with synth-pop. "Close Your Eyes" is a nice darker song that recalls late-90s Paradise Lost, and is a clear highlight with its extended atmospheric middle section and "Straight to the Other Side" is just so stupidly catchy you'll have trouble getting the lyrics "Why am I always feeling so dissatisfied?/Why am I always feeling like I'm not alive?" out of your head for days. Nephil adds even more texture on occasion with a darkened whisper in his native German.

I am the ReVolution is an almost perfect record of modern progressive melodic metal, pushing the boundaries of what truly defines the metal band by being completely unafraid of experimenting with totally different styles of music and making them all work together so well it just seems too easy.

1. Land of Lies
2. Common Ground
3. Lost
4. The Devil in Me
5. Close Your Eyes
6. Total Existance Failure
7. Straight to the Other Side
8. In My Arms
9. Times Like These
10. On the Run From the World
11. Without a Sigh
12. I am the ReVolution

Rating: 96%

NEXUS: The Paradise Complex

Produced by Geoff Eaton and Dan Grainger

Released: July 2009

Perth's isolation from the rest of Australia has always made exposure to its metal scene difficult, but this same isolation has also made it one of the most remarkable scenes around, one that seems to throw up a disproportionately high number of quality bands. Allegiance, iNFeCTeD, Samain, Karnivool, Voyager, Pathogen and Chaos Divine are just a few of those amongst the cream of the western crop of the last 20 years, and to that list can now be added Nexus.

This death metal four piece has created something that can only be described as a saga, a complete science fiction mythology that even has its own language. With the beginning of the story having being played out on the earlier "Eve of Destruction" EP, The Paradise Complex continues the narrative of Raethe, a starship commander who transforms into an omniscient super entity called LhaArn'dHrr. The elaborate storyline is played out both in the lyrics and as a short story included in the booklet, and accompanied by some fantastic modern technical death metal.

Because this is a concept piece, this plays more like a suite where each track flows into the next, yet each one is distinctive enough that it never becomes monotonous or even predictable. Nexus throw in quirky off-time passages and neck-breaking bursts of technical playing, laced with neat melody lines. Stylistically, the band moves between jazz-inflected mathcore moments and technical grind with plenty of pure death metal in the middle. Occasionally, they get just a little too tricky and sound like they've cut off a riff midway through, which can make it all a bit jarring. The lyrics are heavily detailed and delivered through a voice that is variously a roar and a growl, with some sections in the band's own invented language which reads and sounds like a real language, rather than just a bunch of gibberish. This is no small feat in itself, but Nexus is clearly a band that likes challenges and excels at them.

The Paradise Complex is an amazing album and without doubt one of the best metal releases of this year.

1. The Paradise Complex I: The Reckoning
2. Ultimate Knowledge
3. Genesis
4. The Paradise Complex II: The Reasoning
5. Twelve Minds
6. The War of Thought
7. The Paradise Complex III: The Reawakening
8. LhaArn'dHrr

Rating: 87%

DIVINE HERESY: Bringer of Plagues

Produced by Logan Mader and Lucas Banker

Released: 2009

It's certainly a little bit hard to know exactly what to make of Divine Heresy's latest album. With founder and main driving force Dino Cazares now apparently back with the band that made his name and the controversy that surrounded that sudden turn of events, Bringer of Plagues has virtually fallen by the wayside and should the legal wrangling enveloped around Fear Factory be sorted out in Cazares' favour this may well be the last we hear from Divine Heresy.

Few tears would likely be shed if that turns out to be the case, because while it isn't terrible by any means, Bringer of Plagues doesn't really set the world on fire. The vocals are an uninteresting blend of hardcore rasp and Linkin Park-like clean harmonies and a few of the songs are unremarkable. Indeed, the last one-third of the album is quite weak and of the rest only three really stand out.

Cazares lives up to his reputation as a fiendishly tight rhythm guitar player but as usual his repertoire of riffs is deceptively limited. The phrases he puts together are typically catchy and ripping, especially in the pretty decent opening track, "Facebreaker", but almost every other song is built around some variation of the same pattern. Of course, Dino is such a master at this that he gets away with it; his lead playing on the other hand leaves something to be desired. The few solos he throws about are like stuff even Kerry King would throw away, thin bursts of single-note repetition that sound like they were dropped in late to fill a hole. Tim Yeung's drumming, however, has a colour and swing to it that makes him shine, particularly in "Anarchaos" and the track that follows, "Monolithic Doomsday Devices", both of which --especially the first -- are clear highlights.

In most other respects, though, Bringer of Plagues is rather lacking. Except for "Anarchaos", there's very little of the groove that helped make early Fear Factory so special and Travis Neal's generic metalcore vocals are nothing more than average. This one may be good for a few listens, but anyone looking for something more than a few heavy riffs probably won't find much to hold their interest.

1. Facebreaker
2. The Battle of J. Casey
3. Undivine Prophecies (Intro)
4. Bringer of Plagues
5. Redefine
6. Anarchaos
7. Monolithic Doomsday Devices
8. Letter to Mother
9. Enemy Kill
10. Darkness Embedded
11. The End Begins

Rating: 58%