Opeth: Heritage

Artist: Opeth
Album: Heritage
Year: 2011
Line-Up:
              Mikael Åkerfeldt: Vocals, Guitars
              Per Wiberg: Keyboards, Hammond organ
              Fredrik Åkesson: Guitars
              Martin Axenrot: Drums
              Martín Méndez: Bass
Sub-Genre: Psychedelic Rock
                  Progressive Rock

Peers form a big factor when determining the music you listen. So I was sort of a ridiculed person in the group of Opeth fans, when I claimed that I had not heard about them. Well, their reaction was something you would expect to see when you go to a grand prix and not know who Michael Schumacher is. This naturally aroused my curiosity, and I downloaded a couple of albums of the band, which includes this particular one. Well after listening to this album (Oh trust me I managed that feat), my initial reaction was like come on, what are these guys getting at? Agreed that they want to create some progressive music with folk influences, but these songs really get to nowhere, they have no structures and are disjointed. The music is something from 70’s progressive rock era, recycled Pink Floyd stuff with all the enjoyable elements and musical sense seeped out. Strictly speaking this is not a metal album, but we will forget this, shall we not, and I won’t be deducting any major points off for that. The lyrics are repetitive, though not bad poetically.

The vocalist is one of the worst I have ever heard. His voice is not steady, and lacks proper range. Well, people can adore his crooning and rant about how emotional it sounds, but come on almost all clean vocals backed with pianos or acoustic guitars sound that way. I can lay a wager that the ‘great’ Rob Flynn can sing similarly. Be proud Rob there is someone who sucks as much as you, if not more. No question arises about riff work as there is hardly much to note. The keyboard work is so-so. But I can see that it is more of the song writing error than faulty playing techniques in this area. The unstructured nature of the songs does lend too much help to the percussionist either as the drumming becomes disjointed. The production is fine, and the mix manages to merge all the instruments well.

Nothing much of note can be said of the individual songs. All of them are lost in a crescendo of folkish, proggish melodrama that has no idea in which direction its course is. The songs are not at all catchy, and that is a seriously bad. Ok I do not recommend that good music always be an Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. But then shouldn’t there be some interesting parts within the composition? Even the complex, disjoint epic A Pleasant Shade Of Grey achieves some moments coherence and structure and the parts flow superbly into each other. But here they do not, not even for a five minute song, leave aside the argument for a fifty four minute one. They have long instrumental sections just for the sake of having them. There is no real emotion involved. They start up just randomly anywhere and up randomly and then we are again treated to the awful crooning of that vocalist. Just when we begin to think positively about a particular idea (instrumental of course, the vocal melodies….), they follow it up with the most shitty and abominable composition ever heard. Either Mikael Suckerfeld pisses off on that with his abominable ‘emotional’ vocals, or the instrumental takes a very horrendous twist. The song writing does not really give much value to coherent pace and that is another terrible thing about this. But wait; don’t the German masters Mekong Delta achieve the same thing brilliantly? But Ralph Hubert has actual composition talent and Suckerfeldt sure as death does not. Credit given where credit due, I Fear The Dark and Nepenthe are descent compositions, and for once the instrumental sections work well; OK not well enough, there is always that part where you wish you could bash up that vocalist or the drummer out of frustration. Though in all this the problem of the utterly excretory vocals does not diminish. Folklore again works quite well, if you manage to sit out through the first half, which contains some of the worst vocals ever heard. The second half is good, and I admit good, because it is the only coherent part I remember from the album. For the rest of the tracks make sure you have a pillow with you while listening. You will never know when you drift into the boundless, imaginative world of dreams otherwise known as sleep. All of them are twisted in my memory as a single, disjoint track of horrible instrumentals and exponentially horrible vocals.

This album is a peak of how faulty and bad can composition go. Wrong influences and the idea of putting too many ideas stuffed into the little space found here and there within the lengths of the songs really makes the listener grate. Concluding, this album can be an excellent alternative to sleeping pills if you are not able to sleep, otherwise I can see no big reason to listen to this album, not even once.

Final rating: 19/100

Def Leppard: Hysteria

Artist: Def Leppard
Album: Hysteria
Year: 1987
Line-Up:
             Joe Elliot: Vocals
             Rick Savage: Bass
             Rick Allen: Drums
             Steve Clark: Guitars
             Phil Collen: Guitars
Sub-Genre: Hard Rock

Def Leppard continue down the road they had chosen with Pyromania, simplifying the music further and making it more radio friendly. Where Pyromania was softened up but still had many a heavy moments, with Hysteria the band increases the pop content from it's pop metal to the point that it is more of a pop album than metal. Despite being influenced by Michael Jackson's Thriller, this record holds many an enjoyable moments and as a whole turns out to be a barrel of fun.

Musically the band has reduced much of its heaviness in favor of simple, catchy yet effective melodies which the listener can appreciate by the first listen itself. The songs are simple in structure and all of them are built around a couple of riffs at the most. Even though the riffs and melodies are simple, they are executed quite well by the guitarists. The lyrics are very poor related to the subjects found in traditional rock which make no sense whatsoever. The music is mid paced for most of the duration. The high point of the songs are the choruses. In a simple and straightforward record, it is the choruses that hold the key. And thankfully Hysteria is a winner in that department. The choruses are insanely catchy in a good way and appreciable at the first listen. They are further helped by the multi-layered and toned down vocals. Oh yes that does feel cheesy at times, but to be frank this whole record feels cheesy and sugary as the sweetest syrups you ever might have tasted and the great part is that it is still very enjoyable.

Among the songs, Gods Of War, Armageddon It, Animal, Women, Hysteria Run Riot are all instantly addicting classics. All of them feature excellent musical composition and stellar performances. Gods Of War especially contains a very laudable chorus and works as the highlight of the album. Run Riot is a faster track quite similar Let It Go with more melodic guitar work. Love Bites is a much of a love-hate track, which is a ballad and quite a dullard composition compared to the rest of the upbeat and energetic tracks.

Leppard with this album though may have mellowed their sound, still pack quite a lasting punch in terms of enjoyment. Even though the music is quite watered down and pop influenced it still serves as a great guilty pleasure listen when you have been saturated with your latest brutal, cult death metal records. Bottomline; this album is highly recommended for all fans of classical rock and hard rock. Fans of heavier music are also recommended to check this out.

Final rating: 78/100

King Diamond: The Puppet Master

Artist: King Diamond

Album: The Puppet Master

Year: 2003

Line-Up:

              King Diamond- Vocals

              Livia Zita- Vocals (Backing)

              Matt Thompson- Drums

              Hal Patino- Bass

              Andy LaRocque- Guitars, Keyboards

              Mike Wead- Guitars

Sub-Genre: Heavy Metal

Few people in the metal world put as much thought or efforts in their works as King Diamond. With his Alice Cooper inspired theatrics comprising of horror stories, King has put down album after album of high quality heavy metal. Which brings us to the topic King's 12^th output titled The Puppet Master. Continuing on the legacy of The Eye, Them and Abigail, The Puppet Master is a cleverly crafted horror story with equally well composed music to back it up.

Among the technical performances, King is in good form. His trademark wails are toned down, but his use of mid range is very effective creating a complex mash up of vocals. The back up vocals by Livia are also very nicely done. Guitar work is great as usual on a King Diamond album and LaRoque must be appalauded for an impressive lead performance. The album consists of 12 tracks which tell the story of a guy and his girlfriend who attend a puppet show and then are captured by the puppet master and turned into puppets themselves. Cheesy and silly? Oh well it might seem so, but believe me, King can scare the shit out of most people from the silliest stories as he did on Them or Voodoo and does it again so effectively on this record. The music is composed such that fans of the band might immediately identify and connect with. Let us face it folks, King Diamond was never the biggest of experimenters in sound and rightly so for his music has always been crafted cleverly enough and tailored to his needs to match his lyrics and themes.

The album is highly consistent and rarely does a moment of mediocrity spring up. The tracks are catchy along with the mild progressive nature of the music. The atmosphere is quite dark and sad, if not very scary like that was the case with Abigail. Among the tracks, the first five tracks are absolote gems. The best of the bunch has to be the dark and complex Emerencia which contains an excellent vocal perofrmance by King. So Sad is a surprisingly good ballad featuring a duet between King and Livia. Blood To Walk is a weaker track compared with the rest of the album with a relatively very simple structure and lack of proper atmosphere.

The album is another stellar addition in the King's catalog with such gems as The Eye, Abigail, Them. The excellent storyline, though cheesy and silly at thought, is presented with a perfection making the listener deeply absorbed and involved in it. Bottom-line; The Puppet Master lives up to the legacy of the King and is a must listen for all metal heads. Those who haven't heard of the King (though how this may have happened is beyond me) are also adviced to listen to this one as it is serve as an excellent introduction to the dark, bloodcurdling work of the King.

Final rating: 96/100

   

Rammstein: Mutter

Artist: Rammstein
Album: Mutter
Year: 2001
Line-Up:
                Till Lindemann- Vocals
                Richard Kruspe- Guitars
                Paul Landers- Guitars
                Christoph Schneider- Drums
                Christian Lorenz- Keyboards
                Oliver Riedel- Bass
Sub-Genre: Industrial Metal

Controversial German industrial metal band Rammstein's full length, Mutter, is a collossal effort full of powerful and bombastic songwriting which is energetic, catchy and as a whole is a barell of fun to listen. The music on this album, though heavier than the last record, is typical for Rammstein; a crossover of groove metal with synthesizers and some elements of dance music. Where this might not be among the better news to begin with, the band absolotely burns its way through into your ears with a set of 11 meticulously written and powerfully executed tracks. The high point of the album is the simple yet energetic approach of songwriting which remains consistently high throughout the duration of the album. The highlight among the performances is vocalist Till Lindemann who with his powerfull operatic baritone voice gives the band its unique identity. He breathes fire into the stellarly composed songs increasing the power of the music multifold. The songs are short, cachy, to the point and are given full room to develop. Mostly the songs tend to be midpaced with around four or five riffs providing their backbone. The riffs are arranged in a manner so cogent that rarely does a track feel repetitve or insipid. The lyrics, though in German, are very deeply written, if some effort is taken to have them translated.

Highlights, if I start listing them out, will turn out to be the entire record. Never-the-less, the ones that really stand out from the bunch are the bombastic opener Mein Herz Brennt featuring a strong vocal performance from Till and an epic synthsizer melody in the chorus, the groovy, moody and haunting Ich Will, the darkly sarcastic Spieluhr, and the raging Adios. The thrashy blitzkrieg of Adios might just be one of the best tracks they have written. The title track is a sad and depressing song featuring a very emotive performance by Lindemann. The closer Nebel is a softer song, a stark contrast from the rest of the album which once again features some of the finest vocal work by Lindemann. Rein Raus and Zwitter are the low points for the record, at-least compared with the highlights.

The album is yet another stellar addition into the Rammstein cataloque. The record, with its simple and energetic compositions, is a must listen for all fans of heavy metal music especially for the fans of the more melodic spectrum of the genre. The german lyrics might be a put of for some, but it is an aquired taste and adds to the teutonic aura of that album.

Final rating: 96/100

Kreator: Hordes Of Chaos

Artist: Kreator
Album: Hordes Of Chaos
Year: 2007
Line Up:
              Mille Petrozza: Guitars, Vocals
              Ventor: Drums
              Christian Giesler: Bass
              Sami Yli-Sirnio: Guitars
Sub-Genre: Thrash Metal

Kreator's twelfth  full length Hordes Of Chaos is a raw, angry and visceral record, a typical one for Kreator full of heavy riffs, face melting solos, powerful and technical drumming. The album is recorded live in the studio, the first time for Kreator since the iconic Pleasure To Kill. This publicity has caused many longtime fans to expect an album of the Pleasure To Kill caliber and resulting in many of them to being disappointed.

Where this album is nowhere compared to Pleasure To Kill both in terms of sound and composition quality, it is quite a force in the Kreator catalog. It has been 21 years since Kreator recorded Pleasure To Kill and since then there has been many changes in the band's music and ideas. Many of the ideas and changes like their experimentation with Gothic music in the 90s are reflected in the album's music. This album merges many of their melodic experiments with their traditional face shattering thrash. I might not hesitate to add that this, so far is their most melodic record till date. But where the record might be melodic, Kreator uses this melodic approach to create an angry, extreme and tense atmosphere which has been absent in the band's music since 1990. Technically this album is just fantastic. The guitar work, both riff and lead work, is just spot on. No where in the realm of thrash does there exist any guitarist better than Mille Petrozza, and on this album he proves just why. Ventor outclasses some of the best in the business behind the kit and gives a tight and technical performance. The production is a kind of let down. The rhythm guitar could be more crunchier, though it might be giving the album a required raw feel.

The consistency of the album is fairly good. kreator maintains a good variety in the songs like straight forward thrashers, mid paced numbers, and more complex multi-sectioned songs. the main highlight is the quality of songwriting which is very high and successfully merges the raw, brutal, in your face thrash with the more melodic elements. The album is strong in it's share of highlights like the highly catchy, multi-sectioned title track or the high-speed straight forward basher Warcurse, or the more experimental Amok Run. Similarly there are a few mishits as well. Demon Prince doesn't quite stand out and we would have expected a much better end to the album, To The Afterborn isn't quite inspiring as well.

This album is heads on better than the last two albums, both of which were highly competent thrash metal records. The songwriting which manages to be diverse yet bringing forth a raw and visceral energy and sounding quite traditional and primitive makes the album very effective. Believe me if you like Kreator and are a fan of their 80s material you will not be disappointed.

Final rating: 85/100

Machine Head: The Blackening

Artist: Machine Head
Album: The Blackening
Year: 2007
Line Up:
             Robb Flynn: Guitars, Vocals
             Dave McClain: Drums
             Adam Duce: Bass
             Phil Demmel: Guitars
Sub-Genre: Groove Metal, Metalcore

The Blackening, the sixth record by American post-thrash/groove metal outfit Machine Head, is an overlong exercise in attempting to stay awake for its duration. The music on this record is a jumbled up amalgamation of third rate thrash metal, groove metal, hardcore and traces of nu-metal where none of the traces of the above sub-genres are well written enough to stand out on their own. The composed music is structurally very simple and comprises of mediocre riffs and leads which are repeated at least a dozen of times in a track just to extend its duration. The music being extremely simple, technical performances are simply not worth mentioning. The vocals when aggressive are lame Phil Anselmo ripped off shouts that sound more like the vocalist being raped rather than being angry. Though nothing special, the lead work is decent and works as the highlight of many of the tracks. In making the music sound angry, the band looses focus in making the music catchy and listenable. The choruses are lame, many a times featuring a very hideous melodic breakdown which is compounded by the fact that Rob Flynn cannot hold a note steady. Pantera Walk, this is not. The tracks are long just for the sake of being long. Progressions attempted in the tracks are very horrible and lack a general sense of cohesion in them.

The tracks that stand out include Clenching The Fists Of Dissent and Aesthetics of Hate. Both of the above tracks, though overlong, contain at least some parts where the music is fast and thrashy. The former does contain some very horrible pace changes and it sounds hideous when the music gets mid-paced. Now I Lay Thee Down, Halo, Slanderous and A Farewell To Arms are all boring, mid-paced and overlong tracks with none of the musical elements presented in the tracks working properly. Now I Lay Thee Down especially contains a very horribly written chorus and is an abomination at best. Wolves contains some decent sections in its overlong nine minute duration but are sandwiched between moments of insane mediocrity and thus as a whole turns out to be nothing more than a failure.

The fact that the album was highly praised by main-stream media at its release, being hailed as a modern masterpiece of thrash metal when the said sub-genre was actually quite niggard in the messed up jumble of ideas that were present in the compositions, is one of the biggest jokes of the decade. The shitty song-writing and composition coupled with even worse execution makes this album unfit to hear even once. Bottom-line; The Blackening is not recommended to any fan of thrash metal or even groove metal whose fans might be able to sympathize with the album with a warning to stay away from it.

Final Rating: 30/100

Black Sabbath: Dehumanizer

Artist: Black Sabbath
Album: Dehumanizer
Year: 1992
Line-Up:
              Ronnie James Dio: Vocals
              Tony Iommi: Guitars
              Geezer Butler: Bass
              Vinny Appice: Drums
Sub-Genre: Traditional Heavy Metal, Doom Metal

There are some groups of people who when they get together, are bound to deliver quality. Be it the coordination among themselves coupled with their talents, you can see a spark, a striking superior quality compared to that of their peers. OK the group may have differences, ego problems, may even split, but be what may, they are an integral part of each other, and when they are together, they are bound to shake the world. The group of Tony Iommi, Ronnie James Dio and Geezer Butler is one such iconic group. Though having just a couple of albums together prior to this one, there can be no denying the fire these guys brought with them. So Tony Iommi, with limited success with Tony Martin (No offense against Martin, he is a terrific vocalist), decided to go for a reunion. Totally abandoning the power metal direction Iommi had taken since Dio's arrival, the band takes a dark, heavy and punishing road which can be dated back to the days when Tony Iommi single-handedly revolutionized the art of heavy riffing.

Technically the band is in awesome form. Tony Iommi proves just why he is the God of heavy riffs. The riffs are slow, heavy and crushing and majestically interwoven into each other. It feels as if you have been hit by a dozen of jackhammers on your head. The vocals are truly spectacular; an insane combination of spite, rage and fear mixed together in a glorious manner. If ever there was a doubt about Dio singing aggressively, it is put to rest here. He snarls, shrieks, roars and croons effectively adding a bleak and unpleasant color to the music, a stark contrast from his Children Of The Sea days. Geezer is in great form himself with his grim bass lines providing for a perfect backdrop in the bleak scenario. The production is raw and punishing, with the rhythm guitar having a crisp and crunchy sound to it. The rest of the elements aren't ignored, and the vocals, drums and bass are balanced perfectly in.

The album comprises of ten spectacular tracks rooted down in pure doom metal. The consistency of the album is quite high; high so much so that this might be their most consistent album ever. A dark, sludgy and many a times an angry atmosphere decorates this album throughout its duration. The songs are catchy enough to be appreciated at the first listen and the choruses are creative and powerful. The lyrics are simple, yet powerful and go well along with the general bleak atmosphere of the record. The songwriting is simple and straight-forward, yet displaying a matured sense of musicianship which can only be achieved by veterans. Mostly the songs are constructed around a single or at most two riffs but are arranged cleverly enough to ensure that the song remains powerful throughout it's duration. The song length is perfectly balanced and is utilized well for most of the time. Low points in the album are few and between. Just somewhere between Time Machine, Sins Of The Father and Too Late, the album loses its steam which it has picked up. But fortunately the lows are not too low and are far few and between to be ignored.

This album deserves a worthy mention among the very best of Black Sabbath with such gems as Sabotage, Master Of Reality, Heaven And Hell, Tyr. Bottom-line, this album is a must listen for every fan of heavy metal. It is a shame that this album came out during the dark ages and failed to receive the attention it deserves.

Final Rating: 98/100