Reviews: Fires In The Distance, Spectrum Of Delusion, Calarook, Perfect Plan (Matt, Paul S, Liam & Steve)

Fires In The Distance: Echoes From Deep November (Prosthetic Records) [Matt Bladen]

Occasionally this reviewing lark throws up a release that defies all expectation. Echoes From Deep November (though released in September) is the debut release from Connecticut outfit Fires In The Distance, originally scheduled to be a self release they were snapped up by Prosthetic records and on the first listen to the record you can hear why they wanted to pick up this death/doom act. Yes folks it's more death/doom but Fires In The Distance have an innovative take on this melancholic genre, the album deals with depression and mental health struggles bringing an overwhelming sense of pain and anguish to the record across these six songs. 

The same sort of pain and anguish you get from bands such as Swallow The Sun and Paradise Lost however for all of this down-tuned distorted heaviness and growled vocals the real star here is the delicate overlays of piano that add a different dimension to the record. Thes songs apparently started life as ones for melodic death metal band Archaic Decapitator but soon evolved into the more melodic almost gothic sounding album you hear here. The creative force behind Fires In The Distance is Yegor Savonin who plays guitar and keys here adding the dramatic edge to Elusive Light where the heaviness gives way to a electronic pulses and even a spoken word section as it brings yet more heaviness and clean guitar runs towards its end, this bleeds into the very doom laden The Lock And The Key which starts out with a slow deliberate riff before more evocative synth work draws you in. 

With production coming from Dave Kaminsky who the band refer to as a fifth member, Echoes From Deep November envelopes you in it's haunting harmonious sound. As I said the addition of the keys here really makes this record, especially on the wonderful closing instrumental Sundial, but Kristian Grimaldi (guitars/vocals), Kyle Quintin (drums) and Craig Breitsprecher (bass/vocals) all bring massive force on the crushing numbers like Chained To The Earth. As I said you can hear why they were snapped up by Prosthetic as Fires In The Distance really bring another level to the very established death/doom scene with a massive amount of potential shown as well. 9/10  

Spectrum Of Delusion: Neoconception (The Artisan Era) [Paul Scoble]

Spectrum Of Delusion are a dutch Technical Death Metal band. The five piece have been together since 2013, and Neoconception is the bands second album. The band, who feature Douwe Negenman on Vocals, Jerry Kamer on Bass Guitar, Frank van Rijswijk on Guitars, Nathan Bonkerk on Guitars and Jeroen Mostert on Drums, released their first album Esoteric Entity in 2017. The style of Technical Death Metal that Spectrum Of Delusion play is the melodic, and deeply tuneful style, originated by Necrophagist, rather than the extreme and nasty style favoured by bands like Origin or Wormed. The bands bassist Jerry Kamer plays a fretless bass so there are definite similarity to Beyond Creation and probably most of all to earlier Obscura. As you would expect with a Technical Death Metal band all the musicians involved are extremely proficient, so expect amazing solos, complex technical riffs, amazing drumming and of course some staggering fretless bass work. The album is a concept album set in a future where the world is doomed to destruction due to an asteroid strike. 

Mankind is doomed so humanity uploads everyone's consciousness to a spacecraft so it can survive in virtual space. Its an interesting idea, and it’s been realised well with several spoken word parts with actors, it definitely distracted me from the world ending through pestilence and fire. The music is complex, but is also highly melodic and tuneful. The album has 13 quite short tracks, most of which are under 4 minutes, although several of the songs are run into each other, so the album sometimes appears to have longer tracks. The band do have very fast and brutal moments; the track Animosity has several parts that are fast and savage, in a couple of places sounding a little bit like Hate Eternal. However, these very extreme passages are never around for long, before a slower part, or a guitar or bass solo comes along to make everything beautifully florid and tuneful again. This is a very complex album as well. The riffs are constantly changing, it’s a breathtaking complicated style in places on this album. The track Into Another Formation has parts that feel like they are constantly changing, but at the same time it all hangs together and feels like a complete whole, despite rhythms, riffs and bass lines continuously evolving.

Neoconception is a great album. I know i’ve made a huge deal about the technical aspects of this album, and have no doubt, the technical aspects will amaze and delight you. However once you have listened to it a few times you start to take on board that these are great songs, stunning melodies and riffs. It stops being about the individual performances and what really impresses is the album as a single piece of work. It’s like the difference between looking at a painting close up and then from a distance; you stop seeing the individual brush strokes and see the picture as a whole. One of the best Technical Death Metal albums I’ve heard this year, highly recommended. 8/10

Calarook: Surrender Or Die (Self Released) [Liam True]

I love the Pirate Metal genre. It’s silly and doesn’t take itself seriously while being catchy and has produced some great songs and bands. Calarook however isn’t one I’d put into the list of great bands throw forth from the genre. The Swiss five piece have put together a decent album, don’t get me wrong, but It’s not catchy. It doesn’t have the hooks or the song power to really push the album. It has some of the qualities that the genre has. Classical violins as interludes during the slower songs. Pirate song titles and songs about their escapades. But the album feels half arsed, like it was slapped together from the remains of a Death Metal vocal collection and crammed with keyboards. 

On times it does have great guitar playing from Nico Wiget on songs like Krakens Chest & The Legend Of Liquor Island and when combined with the violin playing of Lukas Mischler and the flamboyant drums of Yves Locher they show that they have the crunchy riffs to back themselves up. But everything else just seems slapped together. The monotonous cookie monster vocals of Phillipp Wyssen drone on and don’t have much feeling to them, like he’s not invested in the album. If you can get past some of the idle songs you’ll find some diamonds in the rough. And with a track list of 16 songs clocking in at just over an hour, it’s a bit of an ask. But you'll find some corkers in here. But not for me, it bored me to death. 3/10

Perfect Plan: Time For A Miracle (Frontiers Music Srl) [Steve Haines]

If I drift back in time to before I became the over analytical cynic befitting of a music critic, I loved AOR and soft rock. When I broke up with my first girlfriend, listening to White Lion’s Mane Attraction album on repeat got me through the heartbreak and anguish. I still love AOR but the cynic in me will say that it’s cheesy, dated and formulaic. Thankfully, I turned that part of my brain off when I listened to this record. If I didn’t know better, I would be certain that this record must be from the 80s rather than the second album from Swedish rockers Perfect Plan who formed in 2014. 

Yes, it’s lyrically very cheesy and musically it feels like a throwback, but it’s a fine example of modern AOR and my guilty pleasure personality is thinking it’s bloody fun. The band have such belief and commitment to what they are doing that, if you choose to stop being cynical, you could believe you’re in the midst of the creation of a musical stereotype rather than seeing the effects of one. The reason that something becomes a stereotype is because it was wildly popular in the past and with the cheesy and dated elements comes a mastery of musicianship, great production values and commitment to themes of lost love, lost hope and journeying to a better future.

The two best tracks are the ones where they drift from the path of identikit AOR but this is not because the AOR is necessarily bad but that they stand out for being different. Time For A Miracle opens the album with a military feel that is engaging and Nobody’s Fool opens with bluesy guitar noodling that leads into a bluesy number with a harder edge than the other tracks on the album. There is still demand for this kind of AOR and Perfect Plan are fantastic exponents of the genre. This is a good album and an easy listen (though in 2020, some of the lyrics will make you cringe). I hope that Perfect Plan can benefit from a degree of stereotype lift to bring them a well deserved level of popularity that I think they deserve – because it’s bloody fun! 8/10