Faithful Darkness - In Shadow Lies Utopia

In all honesty, Soilwork really don't appeal to me much. I see them as a good band, but it is mainly the vocals that put me off, and it is thankfully for me that in the drummer's new band, Faithful Darkness, where this is all turned around. In addition to this, their debut album 'In Shadow Lies Utopia' is one of the best metal albums I've ever heard, but that's a minor detail.

What I find truly makes an epic album is interludes, whether they be classical or of a softer nature, such as in Deadlock's 'Wolves' or Trivium's 'Ascendancy'. Somehow, Faithful Darkness pulls off an astonishing album with no interludes or many progressive techniques in sight. However, melody plays a huge part and indeed it is what I believe is the essence of why I love it. 'Pure Silence' has very soft vocals during the chorus, and once you've got over the same feeling I had of it (LAME) and realised it's actually pretty awesome, you understand how much Faithful Darkness have actually put into this set. Although 'Pure Silence' is pretty much the leading track, two others, 'Alive' and 'Believer' are also sweet songs with some of the best choruses I've EVER heard. Every song on the album I find to be re-listenable to the point of death, maybe making an exception to 'Fields of Yesterday', which I find too thrashy, but will apply more to others' taste. Another track that stands out to me is 'Afterlife', which sounds incredibly like Bodom, give it a listen and you'll see what I mean. The guitar parts, despite not being as positively noticeable as the vocals, are still excellent, with great ripping solos and harsh, thudding riffs.

I can't really find many bad points with this album, only maybe they could have chosen a better opening track, as the opener is often the most important. Not to say that 'Stay Awake' is a bad song, though, it still keeps great standard. All in all a fantastic album, and like I said about Sacrament, keeping modern metal alive and is one of the best metal albums ever I believe.

Dragonforce - Valley of the Damned

Ergh. I grow increasingly tired of Dragonforce these days, now that I actually know more than two things about how good music is made. I have learnt that decent metal/rock is NOT measured by how quickly and stupidly its guitarists can play. Their 'epic' theme is also a bit dry, partly cos no one gives a crap about the lyrics, and partly because they're grown men. Herman Li continues his tiresome spree of hitting 5 notes as quickly as possible to make 11 year olds say 'Wow! This is the best band ever! How come not everyone listens to them?' No, Herman Li is not a guitar hero, which is ironic seeing as Through the Fire and Flames is on the third game. He just knows a few scales, puts them at a really high note and taps them as quickly as his fingers can move. Sam, the other guitarist, sucks more, with his solos which are actually worse than Herman's. They also both are notorious for sitting down AND missing every second note at their live shows.

Yes, Dragonforce are original. But that's only because every other band know that where they're going is meant to be a no-go area, parading around with the illusion of talent. It is a shame indeed that the singer has the ability to hit extremely impressively high notes, but just ends up annoying me with the songs they make. The song to name and shame this album with is Starfire, which is cheesy without being funny. Too cheesy. In fact, it's more cheesy than a Chuck Norris film with melted Brie, Wendsleydale and Edam being spread on top. The only song I could find mildly enjoyable was Disciples of Babylon, as jazz, classical and funk styles are all used for quite a good sounding cocktail. Every other song sounded the same. Unfortunately, in this case, the same means' ALL SHIT'.

So I said it. Herman Li is talentless. It's true. Talent involves decent music writing with the inclusion of more than a couple of notes being played at a supersonic speed. This album only exhibits this further. Don't buy it. If you're going to praise it at all, let it be for the artwork.

Illdisposed - Burn Me Wicked

Whilst Illdisposed certainly give themselves the image of YET another obscure, boringly written and badly recorded foreign death metal band, I was very much surprised to find a definite oasis of talent in the arid desert of irritatingly lame copies of Cannibal Corpse by listening to this album. It also surprised me how much they actually sounded like ordinary death metal, but remained catchy, air-guitarable and in some places pretty epic.

It took me a while before I could actually be bothered to listen to this in depth, but once I had I did notice the metal-making talent that Illdisposed, in particular the lead guitarist, have. Admittedly the opening track, 'Shine Crazy' was more of a deterrent than a song to get me into them, as it was extremely repetitive and quite frankly boring as anything. It is one of the worst songs on the album and so as a message to anyone who wants to give Illdisposed a go, don't let this put you off. The songs that really stand out to me were without a doubt the title track 'Burn Me Wicked' with its epic chorus and solo, 'Case of the Late Pig' which, ignoring the retarded name, had a great catchy riff and good use of electronic sounds, and 'Nothing to Fear... Do It', the high pitched wailing and slamming background riffs of which reminded me much of Maiden. The last track, 'Illdispunk'd' is a piss-take song which is just about travelling to your local area, becoming intoxicated with alcoholic substances and recieving fellatio from your sister. It's a good laugh, using punk style riffs and giving the impression of a fun-loving metal band in the same way that Bodom do.

This album is undoubtedly a good listen, it has pretty brutal vocals, (listen to 'Our Heroin Recess') and pretty sweet guitar parts all round. A few tracks are pretty annoying, but I think the rest make up for it. Worth your money? Depends what you're into; if you're a purist death metaller, yes. If you're like me and can only stand death metal in smaller doses, perhaps not. Nevertheless, claps for Illdisposed for a nicey made set of tracks.

Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape

Now it's almost my duty as a metal head to proclaim this to be a boiling piece of SHIT. However. I LIKE this shit. I'm not gonna bother giving a big explanation on who Foo Fighters are, as I'm sure you know, and if you don't, FIND OUT YOURSELF YOU LAZY FAGGOT. I believe this is one of their first albums, and it's not bad. At all. The album seems to appeal to the softer side of my music taste, a taste that is rarely apparent (I say as I browse through my Funeral For A Friend songs). Now this is the confusing part. For me to like a soft album, it would have to be pretty fucking depressing, otherwise it's a NO GO. However, this album is so fucking happy in places it makes me want to amputate myself with a rusty toothbrush covered in apricot jam. Yet I still like it?

I've always felt Dave Grohl as a vocalist that could definitely be involved in some metal, though so far he doesn't to of seemed to go near the stuff. Shame really. But I believe that Foo Fighters, in a sense, could be sort of like the soft music for metal heads. If your a metal head, and somehow start craving some soft music because you've turned into a wrist hating, fag loving, straight-hair obsessant little shit, then go listen to Foo Fighters (I'm not saying they're emos...just...yeah...). So I got the album, listened to it the whole way through, and I was very confused. The happiness. The sadness. THE NON-METALNESS. But, for a reason I still just CAN'T explain, I like it. It's like morning wood, you have it, but you just can't explain why. Or, maybe you can. Whatever. Well the album contains a massive 18 songs (still got nothing on Katatonia), with only 2 songs being hit songs. Them being “Monkey Wrench” and “Everlong”, which can be a bit depressing, but the songs in between are basically just interludes, letting your mind wander (about why your listening to this(SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)) before the next hit starts.

So I'm still confused about why I like this. But then again, I'm also confused as to why I like metal. Oh. Wait. Because it's awesome? I can't really give advise on buying this...you would have to have some weird life-changing moment or something to ACTUALLY BUY IT. So really, I've just wasted your time, and made you look at my Foo Fighter rant. Well done.

I apologize for the pussy review, I just came across it and thought “WHY THE SHIT NOT?!”. I'll do some brutal death metal or something next time.

Guns 'N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

It's shit.

The Haunted - The Dead Eye

The Swedish Melodic Death Metal / Thrash band “The Haunted” started from the drummer, bassist and guitarist of At The Gates, the legendary band that started Melodic Death Metal (shame they were crap), when they wanted to approach a more thrash metal approach to their music. They've made a few albums before this one, which I've listened to every now and again and not been overly keen on them. However, this album is somewhat different (in other words, it's good)

Despite them aiming for more of a Thrash Metal style...they've managed to somehow end up going back to Melodic Death Metal in this album. Well...only slightly I suppose, it still remains quite thrash rooted (NO I WILL NOT MAKE A SEPULTURA PUN). One thing you will notice about this album is that they've started everything with “The”. The band name. The album name. EVER SINGLE SONG TITLE. Probably caused by some weird Swedish word fetish or something. Besides that slight annoyance, it's a pretty good album. The riffs aren't fantastic I have to admit, however, that doesn't stop the songs from being amazing. The vocals are very unique and use a good mix of aggressive harsh vocals to quite sinister clean vocals. The songs are quite diverse, going from being quite fast and thrash like, to being slow, melodic, and acoustic guitars get occasionally involved during some of the calmest moments of the album.(Don't worry, the acoustic guitar bits don't sound really gay as you may predict).

Is this album worth buying? I would say yes, especially if you're quite into Swedish thrash or melodic death metal, however, as it is quite unique, your better off checking it out first. I don't know anyone else who's listened to this album, so I may well be the only person on earth that likes it, but hopefully my judgement isn't too bad...otherwise all this reviewing stuff seems a bit ironic.

Turisas - Battle Metal

Once again, I know my fellow critics of this site will be less than pleased that I have but mentioned this band/album, but it has managed to get itself a large listening time from me, and as such feel I should review it as Turisas have made themselves popular within the last year or two, and I am meant to be the one that reviews less obscure bands.

Turisas, I believe, mark what viking metal is ALL about. They are new, and so are not one of the classic bands but somehow manage to define their own genre in a way similar to Maiden defining Heavy Metal and Metallica defining Thrash. Their musical style and lyrics both reflect this, by using violins, pipes and trumpets to give the Norse feel to their songs whilst singing about death in battle and the afterlife. Not that it has much to do with listening to the album, but they also dress up as blood-spattered warriors when on stage, which does look pretty cool.

I reckon their defining songs on this album would be 'Battle Metal' and 'Land of Hope and Glory' (no, not the hymn moron). They both use classic Norse folk styles and almost make you want to rape and pillage your neighbours for shits and giggles. I found Rex Regi Rebellis and its prologue could only be described as weird, and though it seemed kinda epic and adding to the glory and death theme it verged on being funny, but not in the good way. Sahti-Waari deserves credit, as although it is entirely in some Scandinavian language it does show that they know of their ancestry and of the viking culture, and are not just some piss-take band.

Whether this album is really worth your money is debatable. What isn't debatable is that viking metal is very much an aquired taste, one that does not suit the other two reviewers of this site. Buying the album is one thing, however, as I would undoubtedly pay to see them live. In all fairness, you can hardly hate a band too much with lyrics like this...

'With full power we smashed into their lines,
The ground shook, swords tasted their flesh,
Hooves trampling over men screaming for their lives,
The battle raged until both troops were thrashed.'

... can you?