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Gamingforce Music Exposure Club™
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lkaerus
Frog


Member 4214

Level 6.55

Mar 2006


Old Oct 30, 2007, 07:02 PM Local time: Oct 30, 2007, 07:02 PM #1 of 201
Hella - Hold Your Horse Is (2002)
Label: 5 Rue Christine
Genre: Math rock (according to the internet, I'd say it's more Experimental Tech)





Review:
The instrumental music Hella constructs (call it math rock/spazz, whatever) is sensational because of the immediate realization of Zach Hill's innovations in drumming. I've heard his drumming be compared to popcorn popping in patterns or a hailstorm raining on a drumkit. However these comparisons kind of make a novelty out of Hill's playing. It's not even about his agility and precision, or even his endurance to play Hella music for that matter. Then you have Spencer Seim whose guitar playing offers a complimentary ear extravaganza for you. Appropriately frenzied, often transcendent in melody or reckless in nature (usually combined), he uses a lot of tapping and odd atonal chords that really give the staccato rampage of Hella's music it's colorful paint job.


Recommended tracks:
City Folk Sitting, Sitting
Republic of Rough and Ready


Download



Behold...The Arctopus - Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning (2006)
Label: Metal Blade
Genre: Experimental Tech Metal





Review:
The complexity of this band, hailing from somewhere beyond the North Atlantic, is interesting and creative. The difference between Behold… the Arctopus and other prog-metal bands is that whilst they have an interest in classical composition (citing Luciano Berio as an influence, for example) as most ‘prog’ bands do, they have a past in thrash and death-metal which stops them from becoming as weak as, say, Dream Theater. Don’t let that stop you from listening to this though, non-death metal fans, there is nay a growl in sight here - it’s entirely instrumental. Plus, look at the title of this EP and the songtitles and you’ll see they have a sense of humour which stops this from merely being an exercise in ultra-technical proficiency.

The actual music held herein is highly aggressive, highly dissonant and dazzling. It’s almost cinematic in scope. As much inspired by 20th century classical and jazz as by metal is the usual way the band is described; some reviews and descriptions mention improvisation however, but that would be incorrect. Every part of the band’s music is rigorously composed and structured, separating it thus. To give you some idea of just how much thought goes into these pieces, the band says this: "We tend to compose above our own abilities, so while a song may come together in a week, it takes us another six or eight months to learn it."

Musical phrases don’t last very long, with spiralling fret board workouts imitating both themselves, the Warr guitar parts and even the drumming patterns; occasionally, during quieter, more subtle passages, Mike Lerner’s guitar resembles Pat Metheny’s whilst playing Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint composition. This is, surprisingly, not that rare in the tech-metal scene, for instance on Psyopus’ debut they regularly use the same tone and technique used by Metheny in playing the composition aforementioned. Make of that what you will.

As touched upon in the previous paragraph, it’s not constantly loud and metallic; Colin Marston’s other projects (Byla, certainly) quietly influencing the music, with sporadic drone and ambient-inspired passages. This once again sets the band firmly apart from most other millennial metal acts. It’s also this variety that makes the band vastly superior to another Marston band, Dysrhythmia, whose standard math-rock forms are much less interesting than Behold… the Arctopus.

This is the first serialist-metal act, and it’s for fans of Arnold Schoenberg as much as Meshuggah, but to get the most out of this release it's best if you appreciate both.



Recommended Tracks:
Sensory Amusia

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The Sword - Age Of Winters (2006)
Label: Kemado
Genre: Doom/Stoner Metal




Review:
There hasn't been an album which is this bursting at the seems with huge, super heavy, rumbling, meaty, crushing, Sabbath-inspired, fret board smoking riffs since Mastodon's "Leviathan" was released in August of 2004. Frontman J.D. Cronise sings melodically (almost in an Ozzy Osbourne-esque tone), so he sometimes takes away from this Austin based band's intensity. But, luckily, the punch the guitars pack is definitely powerful, visceral, and great enough to make up for the vocals. The riffs cascade, groove, and storm like tumbling logs, and the rhythms crunch, crash, and flatten like a truckload of falling bricks and steel bars. The album begins with a brief instrumental ("Celestial Crown"), which has pounding, lumbering riffs. That song is mid-tempo, but some songs, like "Freya" and "The Horned Goddess," are blistering, with speedy, churning guitars (plus, the latter track also has a mini guitar solo.) Track six, "Iron Swan" begins with soft strumming and percussion rattles before rocketing into a fast, propulsive guitar lead and eventually segueing into crunchy, punching riffs. But this disc's best track is probably the epic, very Mastodon-esque instrumental, "March of the Lor." According to the C.D. booklet, this instrumental is divided into eight "movements" (parts). Even if one or two songs get to be kind of repetitive, it only makes sense that the guitarists (Kyle Shutt and the aforementioned frontman J.D. Cronise) would have to recycle a couple riffs when the album is this full of them. All in all, "Age Of Winters" is easily the best doom metal C.D. of the past year and a half, and it is absolutely essential for everybody who enjoys the genre, as well as fans of Black Sabbath, High On Fire, and Mastodon.



Recommended Tracks:
Freya
Barael's Blade



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Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow (2003)
Label: Load Records
Genre Noise/Experimental Rock





Review:
Oh Jeebus, this is one intense album. For those unfamiliar with Lightning Bolt, the loud, hard-pounding Wonderful Rainbow should serve as a suitable introduction to this manic drum-and-bass duo. There may only be two instruments being played, and a few wordless vocals scattered throughout, but Wonderful Rainbow is anything but minimal. This is one busy album, filled with dense, complex, and occasionally playful pieces of noise rock that will have you banging your head in no time at all.

If you ever thought a bass couldn't be used as a lead instrument, this album will provide you with a resounding rebuttal, as Brian Gibson finds more uses for the instrument than you might think possible. His work here ranges from big fuzzed-out riffs to screeching bouts of feedback and everything in between, while Brian Chippendale contributes some drumbeats that you'd have to send away to NASA to calculate. Go ahead, try to sit still while listening to the crazed intro to 30000 Monkeys. I dare you.

There are a few rather mellow moments to be found here, but they basically just serve as counterpoints to the monstrous sonic onslaught that's typically on display. As someone else has already noted, Lightning Bolt makes a great antidote to the Belle and Sebastians of the world. This album is a must for serious noise enthusiasts everywhere.



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*all reviews were taken from Amazon.. sorry forgot to quote them all :X*

How ya doing, buddy?
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