Lovebites: Electric Pentagram (Century Media) [Rich Oliver]
These girls simply do not stop. One of the hardest working bands out there at the moment, Japanese power metallers Lovebites have put out album number three which is titled Electric Pentagram and it is the sixth release since the bands formation in 2006 with three albums, two EP’s and a live album released in total. That is some serious output but thankfully it is not quantity over quality as Lovebites have done their best album yet with Electric Pentagram.
Previous album Clockwork Immortality was a bit more of a streamlined affair with a greater influence from classic heavy metal but it seems that Lovebites have gone back to the speed and power of their debut. This is a fast and furious album (nothing to do with the film franchise) which rarely takes its foot off the gas. It sees Lovebites on absolutely blistering form with strong influences from thrash and European power metal. This album is pedal to the metal speed and power from start to finish with opener the aptly titled Thunder Vengeance luring you in with its atmospheric intro before the thrashing riffs, battering drums and soaring vocals of Asami ensure you know Lovebites mean business. Holy War carries on the momentum with its blistering pace, Stratovarius styled huge chorus and some symphonic undertones courtesy of some well used keyboards.
Backing keyboards are used throughout the album giving the songs an epic edge but without dominating and firmly remaining in the background. The nods to classic metal are prevalent with the Iron Maiden gallop and duelling lead guitars of Golden Destination, the fist pumping anthemic nature of Raise Some Hell and The Unbroken and the pure 80’s metal swagger of Dancing With The Devil. The album is also chock full of the huge melodic choruses that us power metal fans so dearly love with When Destinies Align and A Frozen Serenade being pure earworms whilst the band absolutely rage ahead with the speed metal assault of Signs Of Deliverance and the thrash metal attack of Set The World On Fire.
With twelve songs and a duration of just over an hour and ten minutes this is a lengthy album and is a bit on the repetitive side but the quality is so high throughout that the album does not overstay its welcome. Hands down the best album that the band have put out yet and just some awesome, speedy and anthemic power metal that all cheesy metal aficionados should be lapping up.9/10
Some bands don’t make it easy for themselves. There’s very little background information to be had on these guys out on t’interweb (no FaceBook presence, no Wikipedia entry - even the label website has diddly-squit on them), so building a following is probably more of a struggle than it should be. However, this is the second album from Italian doomy-prog outfit Anno Mundi (which is latin for ‘in the year of the world’ don’t’cha know), the last being way back in 2011. Their name implies Black Sabbath, and there are some moments of pure Sabbath in there (Searching The Faith in particular), but for the most part apart from an overall doomy feel, and a couple of other bouts of occasional heaviness (more stoner than doom), this bunch are very much a prog rock affair, and not a metal one. All the tropes are there – 15 minutes epics, lots of instrumental breaks (and tracks), trippy keyboards, random sound samples and so on. And just to make sure you get the progressive message, the running time comes in at a whopping 1 hour and 20 minutes ... so more 70’s Yes than Sabbath. And it’s worth sitting out to the end, as closing track Blackfoot is a good foot-tapper.
The overall feel is a group who want to share their love of their hippy grandad’s record collections, but aren’t quite sure where they are going with it. There is some very strong instrumental work, some nice use of keyboard voices, but I’m not sure about the vocals. Freddy Giuntoli certainly has a range on him, to the point when I did wonder if vocal duties were being shared amongst the band, but his high range parts sound very forced and strained, and that’s on an album with the opportunity to lay it down until it’s right, so I suspect he may struggle live. Or play down a key. That said if they were on a festival bill somewhere I would definitely check them out. 6/10
The overall feel is a group who want to share their love of their hippy grandad’s record collections, but aren’t quite sure where they are going with it. There is some very strong instrumental work, some nice use of keyboard voices, but I’m not sure about the vocals. Freddy Giuntoli certainly has a range on him, to the point when I did wonder if vocal duties were being shared amongst the band, but his high range parts sound very forced and strained, and that’s on an album with the opportunity to lay it down until it’s right, so I suspect he may struggle live. Or play down a key. That said if they were on a festival bill somewhere I would definitely check them out. 6/10
Passion: S/T (Frontiers Records) [Matt Bladen]
Passion was created by former Night By Night vocalist, Daniel Rossall a/k/a Lion Ravarez who has worked with other members of that band on Passion, which is basically his solo project, he played most of the instruments and produced the record but has formed a band to take the project on the road. Musically the record takes from late 80's and early 90's melodic rock in the vein of Aerosmith, Van Halen and Def Leppard. Now if that sounds like hell then you may want to stop reading now as we get of innuendo-laden numbers like Built To Please and the AC/DC bounce of She Bites Hard. Along with slick saccharine numbers like Trespass On Love and bluesy Back the record moves between an awful lot of the sounds that have been done before, not just to the bands mentioned above but also the myriad of acts that continue to rake in the money by blatantly copying their predecessors. There are a few hard driving rockers here that make the toes tap, but it's not a spectacular album, well produced and performed, as you'd expect from any Frontiers act, this is standard stuff. Despite Rossall's great vocals it's nothing more than average. If you still pair most of your clothing with a bandana and a leather jacket then let this Passion fire yours, if you've grown up a bit then find something else to do. 5/10
Earth Collider: Twilight Of Man (Self-Produced) [Simon Black]
Hailing from Asheville in North Carolina, this is the debut album from thrash speedsters Earth Collider. I’m holding back here, as I hate to kick bands when they are starting out and self-produced, but this is a promising band completely let down by some really poor production values. I have to review this as an album, but this sounds like a demo recorded in a rehearsal room with one take per song, not a properly produced album. If I was feeling more generous, I might defensively claim that the production values might be a tribute to some of the ground-breaking 80’s thrash/noise acts who kicked the door down with no money and hard touring, but in the 21st Century where every tablet and PC can run basic music authoring tools this just sounds poor.
That said, I suspect that they might be quite fun live, as there’s a huge amount of energy here and some good technical musicianship (particularly on title track Twilight Of Man), but the abysmal and inconsistent production values sink this like a lead Donkey. The engineering is non-existent, as different tracks appear to have been recorded in completely different sessions and with very variable quality. Coming off worst in the productions stakes are Brian Hickey’s vocals, which sound like an attempt to weld thrash with Halford’s screams. It doesn’t work because the net effect sounds like a 4 Track set up in a rehearsal with insufficient PA power and a complete absence of monitors for him or anyone else to hear themselves. I get that these guys are starting out so let me be clear, this shows a lot of promise, but it’s a strong demo, not an album. Yet. Let’s hope they can use this to get a label interested, and re-record this with the care and technical support it deserves. 4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment