Reviews: Orbit Culture, Warmen, The Circle, Orphalis (Reviews By Mark Young, Matt Bladen, Rich Piva & James Jackson)

Orbit Culture - Descent (Seek and Strike Records) [Mark Young]

Descent is the latest from Sweden’s Orbit Culture. They have all the tags in place, death metal, groove metal, melodic death metal and perhaps more importantly, just plain metal which suggests that its either going to be a genre striding colossus or a mixed bag where nothing quite fits and is unsatisfying in the end. I’ve not come across them before, so I have no expectation of what they are going to be like. Or if I’m going to like them but reading online they have generated a buzz with their previous releases so I’m quietly confident that this will be a good one.

So, lets go.

After a short, cinematic introduction (Descending) we are into the album properly with Black Mountain, a fairly frenetic and very grand opening track. Early signs are promising of a stomping riff, with those guttural roars sliding into those impassioned cleans courtesy of Niklas Karlsson and some impressive footwork from Christopher Wallerstedt who places a marker of some incredible skills to come. Its certainly heavy, with all the right parts in the right places but its just feels a bit sterile, like a dentist. As we progress through the tracks, all of which are well crafted and they sound great but I cannot get past that feeling that there is something not there, or rather there is something that I am not connecting with.

Sorrower, has another spot on stomper of a riff that sits well with the death growls but I seem to miss something once they switch over to the cleans in that verse – chorus – verse – fast breakdown formation that musically is top notch. From The Inside, to these ears seems to repeat that trick and from there on in it becomes a slog. Vultures Of North comes in and tries to kick things up, with a tight riff and a tempo that wants tear holes in you. This is what I expected here, just an absolute battering but it doesn’t last. There is a drop off in attack that feels as though it was a form of padding out the song. It didn’t need it, just drop a 3 minute kicking and go onto the next one. Alienated grabs this opportunity, adding in swelling keys against some inhuman BPM’s from that man Christopher W. The man is on fire here, managing to keep that forward movement going and is a high point here for me.

The following tracks come without really impacting upon me; there is no denying that from a skill point of view they have an abundance of it and more. From an actual writing point of view it felt as though they were torn between two paths as there is a number of those slower paced songs that have the pre-requisite sections that speed up as called upon, with Undercity being an example of this. I’m not sure how well the clean switch worked as for me it took some. Technically gifted like the best oral hygienist but leaving you slightly worse off due to the throbbing in your mouth.  6/10

Warmen - Here For None (Reaper Entertainment) [Matt Bladen]

Formed by keyboardist Janne Wirmen, who will forever be known as Janne from Children Of Bodom, Warmen is his solo project that he started with his brother Antti in 2000. Mainly instrumental when they stared out, there were many guest vocalists on previous albums but Here For None features new singer Petri Lindroos of Enisferum, he has a snarl similar to that of Alexi Lahio, which means that Here For None is the album closest to the Children Of Bodom sound than any other.

Janne puts this down to an increase in a more aggressive style of songwriting he and his brother bringing more of the thrashy riffs, the lead guitars of Antti and the keys of Janne in perfect unison on tracks such as Night Terrors and the thrashy Hell On Four Wheels, as the rhythm section of bassist Jyri Helko and drummer Mirka Rantanen blast away on The Driving Force or add the chug to Too Much, Too Late. Death's On It's Way goes into the realms of Slayer, though the cover of Dancing With Tears In My Eyes by Ultravox is odd but then CoB always did some crazy covers. 

Here For None is another great slice of melodeath/power/symphonic metal from the brothers Wirman, Warmen continue the legacy of Alexi Lahio better than that other project attempting to. 7/10

The Circle - Of Awakening (AOP Records) [Rich Piva]

So how can I resist something labeled “Symphonic Doom” in the promo bin? This is how my journey with the second release from Hamelin, Germany’s The Circle begins. The band was founded by ex-Wintersun vocalist Asim Searah, so if you are familiar with them this should give you a starting point. But let’s just say this is bigger than anything they have put out there before. This is dark, bleak, blackened, death, doom. So, a little of a lot, but the songs are huge sounding and there is a lot going on across the five tracks of this concept album.

Kicking us off is Ruins, My Dying World, which rips you up from the death doom side until about five minutes in you are mesmerized by the violin and the soft, spoken word. I love how the tempo changed on this track seamlessly without losing the heaviness. The shotgun drums and gang vocals at the end of the track are very cool and set up the story nicely. I don’t always love the growl vocal style but in the context of this album it works for me. The title track is up next, and it has a lot going on. We are still on the epic death/doom tip, but musically you can hear all sorts of stuff happening, which I guess is where the symphonic description comes from. 

The drum work on Of Awakening stands out, as does the use of strings. Violin/viola or whatever can be more of a gimmick than a necessity on albums like this, but The Circle makes the strings crucial to their sound and the title track is a perfect example, especially the solo at the end of the song. Afflux is up next, and it starts with a quick rumble into a clean singing whisper, reminding me of his old band at times or maybe Paradise Lost. That whisper doesn’t last, as the gigantic screams take the slow burner over as the heavy rhythm section works in tandem with the strings nicely. I’m not going to try to recreate the story in this review, but the next track, Reign Of Terror is where the stuff is about to go down. 

Epic, gothic doom and a haunting female siren call leads the way, until we go full on blackened death/doom with insanely fast drumming and a big back wall of sound. The growl/clean vocal combo is in full action here and works perfectly as does the guitar solo to close it out. Ashes And Fading Tides is some epic, symphonic black metal goodness partnered with the gothic doom vibes that of Awakening consistently gives off. I love the strings and clean vocals slow down at the five-minute mark. Good stuff.

I don’t always love the death growls, but used with what The Circle brings musically, the on and off clean vocals, and the perfect use of strings, I am all about Of Awakening. This random grab from the promo folder is a really nice surprise that I will be listening to on the regular. These guys can really play and write some epic stuff. Worth checking out for sure. 8/10

Orphalis - As The Ashes Settle (Transcending Obscurity Records) [James Jackson]

First impressions count and yet you should never judge a book by its cover, life is so full of contradictions; judging this particular book by its cover however leads to exactly what you’d expect, the death metal style logo and the bleak image of blood red skies and a desolate structure doesn’t give the impression that this is going to be easy on the ear. And with the title track firing straight into an assault of guttural vocals and the fury of death metal’s atypical drum and guitar playing this is exactly as expected; it brings back memories of my teenage years buying albums purely based upon the song titles and generally hideous looking artwork. 

The second track opens in pretty much the same fashion, there’s an interesting bridge that unfortunately isn’t used as much as I’d have liked it. It’s at this point that after listening to the first four or five tracks that the novelty is wearing thin, any feeling of nostalgia has dissipated and given way to indifference; we’ve all heard someone say that heavy metal is just noise and each and every Metalhead on the planet has turned round and said “X song by X band on X album is an absolute masterpiece, it’s deep and moving on so many levels”, knowing fully well that’s it’s really grunt, bleugh, bleugh, expletive, blood, gore, death, blegh, expletive. And that’s absolutely fine, but not for me, not today. 

I drifted away from the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Obituary and the like after discovering bands that are slightly less one dimensional; acts like My Dying Bride who upon their Turn Loose The Swans album took that brutality of death metal and seamlessly melded it with violin infused doomy goodness. This album is every death metal fans wet dream, it’s got the apocalyptic album cover, the nightmare inducing song titles and all the hallmarks of the genre, all the guttural vocals and chainsaw riffs that you could possibly imagine. 

They play well, the songs are as well crafted as any other in this genre that I’ve ever heard and if I were 30 years younger looking to expand upon my collection of albums to piss my parents off with, then this is definitely something I’d have picked up and ultimately lent to my peers all of whom were doing the same thing. For me now though, the nearly half a century old, grumpy git that my children so affectionately call me; it’s not working. 4/10