Reviews: Sonata Arctica, VRSTY, Reckless Souls, Spartan (Reviews By Simon Black & Matt Bladen)

Sonata Arctica - Acoustic Adventures - Volume One (Atomic Fire Records) [Simon Black]

Stick around for long enough and bands inevitably succumb to the temptation to do something subtly different with their core sound, because let’s face it doing the same thing for decades on end might not wear the punters out, but it does wear down on the players. If you have to spend months in studio writing, recording, rehearsing and then many nights cranking the same set out again and again live, you can forgive an act for wanting to spice things up a little from time to time, even if this tends to scare the crap out of label A&R staff. 

Sometimes this comes with a complete (and highly risky) change of musical direction for a core studio release, but many also dip their toes in the slightly safer territory of taking their existing catalogue and either playing with a full blown orchestra, or a scaled back acoustic version of their hit list. Sonata Arctica did the later live a few years back and well-received it was at the time, so rather than risking a release of new material getting lost in the pandemic chaos, the band have elected to cherry pick a whole bunch of songs and re-record fully acoustic versions over a two release set, of which this is the first (although this set is fairly close to that 2016 set list).

I have to confess I’m none too familiar with much of their extensive catalogue, but that means I can be objective - but then so too have the band. With a ten studio album backlog, there’s a lot of material to choose from and fortunately the band have remained pragmatic whilst approaching this - which is why you aren’t just hearing the same tracks played beat for beat and note for note with acoustic guitars and the odd tambourine thrown in for good measure. 

In some cases that has meant completely rearranging the arrangement to fit a totally different format and an almost complete genre shift to boot and I can’t think of a better example than the Neo-Classical power metal speedball that is Wolf & Raven, which here transmogrifies into a frenzied punk polka, whilst losing none of its charm and gaining buckets more catchiness along the way. Most of the material does not go that far off at a tangent though, retaining that heartfelt melodic melancholy that is their stock in trade.

Tony Kakko has always had a melodic, slightly folky timbre to his voice anyway, but always has delivered plenty of metal guts and power to boot - particularly live, which makes the dramatic transformation in his quite frankly beautiful singing on this disk all the more emphatic. Although the whole band are cohesively and fluidly working together, hearing Kakko with none of the rawer aspects of his delivery makes this sound like a completely different band, although you can clearly hear their distinctive essence in these versions. 

If anything it illustrates quite how accomplished their song writing actually is, allowing the ear to unpick subtle melodic refrains that might otherwise be buried under the bravado and overdrive of their power metal mode. Either way, I’ve found this fascinating enough to go back and compare the louder versions, so if nothing else I’m grateful for the opportunity to dig into a band I had previously only had a passing acquaintance with that little bit more deeply. Roll on Volume 2… 8/10

VRSTY - Welcome Home (Spinefarm Records) [Simon Black]

Imagine if you will, what might happen if an artist who grew up with an R&B and pop background went to a metal show and realised that he’s missed out on something pretty big up to that point? The answer is indeed VRSTY (pronounced “varsity”) who are a very unusual sounding beast indeed. Now I’m old enough to have been around when bands’ started experimenting with fusing metal with other seemingly eclectic genres in the 80’s, with not a care that their one-off song or side project might inadvertently spawn a whole sub-genre of followers capable of eclipsing their own place in the panopticon. I’m sure that was the last thing on Anthrax’s mind when they produced their Rap-Metal fusion spoof I’m The Man, little knowing that it would allow not one but two whole sub-genres to emerge and Martin Walkyier is still kicking himself for creating, but failing to earn a crust from his experiment in Thrash-Folk with Skyclad.

So enter singer Joey Varela, whose fusion of styles vocally produces a sound that might trick the casual observer into thinking they missed a key step in the Nu-Metal movement. Musically the instrumental side of things is clearly influenced by the heavier end of the musical spectrum though, but the R&B lyrical phrasing and styles (mercifully free from any hint of an auto-tuner) work surprisingly well with this and I will be curious if the subtlety of this can be pulled off in a high volume live environment, although Varela turns in a good extreme grunt or two to keep his metal credentials in order.

Actually the Nu-Metal comparison is relevant instrumentally as well, given that we have heavy riffs and rhythms, but soloing is de-rigueur and some of that layering comes from some light touch keyboards, but don’t underestimate the heaviness of that riffage on tracks like Closer. The album generally gets lighter as it goes on, but that feels more like Linkin Park ballad territory rather than R&B crooning. In fact the whole album is very moody and minor key driven, but there’s some good anthemic material in there – Paranoid being a good example of this and it’s exactly the kind of crossover stuff that could spawn band offspring and bring more people into the wacky metal world by accident.

Interesting, original and surprisingly catchy – I shouldn’t like it, but I do. 8/10

Reckless Souls - Timeless (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]

We reviewed Norwegian band Reckless Souls debut album, What About Us back in 2018 and decided that it was prime slice of retro sounding rock n roll. A few years later and they are now in place to release their follow up. What you can notice is that despite the band having been together since 2013, on this album they have tried to change their sound a bit, adding a bit more punk and grunge to the mix. It means that Timeless is a darker record than the predecessor, a reflection perhaps of the time we live in at the moment. 

An emotional build gets us going on the intro leading into first song proper, the Western themed Where I Belong, atmospheric guitars and a tolling bell coming at the start before the distorted riff gets going. Starting off with a swagger were brought into big open chords on All Of Nothing shaped to be an arena offering. Musically there's a lot of dexterity on this record however personally I'm not too enamoured with the dulcet vocals, but that's possibly just me. 

If you can get round it, Timeless is a hip shaking rock n roll record, one that has garage rock directness and fuzziness on Voodoo Girl as well as straight up punk snarling on Room 114 leading to the proggy climax of Lost In Time. Timeless sees Reckless Souls following up their 2018 record with an eclectic rock record. 7/10 

Spartan - Of Gods And Kings (Pest Records) [Matt Bladen]

Inspired by Amon Amarth, Children Of Bodom and In Flames, Netherlands based band Spartan move away from Viking or Roman inspired lyrics, focussing theirs on the Greek myths and legends, thus their name. They have previously released an EP and an album, so what does their sophomore album offer? Well it's characterized as power death and that, is quite an apt way of putting things. Mainly sitting in the melo-death style, choppy metalcore riffs, bring some big beatdowns on Tomb Of The Great (Alexander Pt.2), there are old school twin axe attacks aplenty from the intro that gives way to opening number Prometheus. 

You may think that this album has a lot of sounds like Trivium due to the style seems to stick in, but there are also some cinematic flourishes on A Siren Song (Odysseus Part 2) which features some guest female vocals that brings touches of Epica as the harsh vocals work in conjunction with these soaring cleans. Of Gods And Kings was actually recorded in 2019 but delayed due to pandemic, I can understand why, as on record the band's music does seem a little similar, so without the ability to tour it, Of Gods And Kings may have been lost in the pile. Still if mythology themed melodeath appeals then check out Spartan's second album. 6/10