Helloween - Live At Budokan (Reigning Phoenix Music) [Simon Black]
Helloween have the virtue of being the first band I ever saw live at a festival waaayyyy back in 1988, where I promptly fell in love with them, but they really dropped from my radar in the years following the collapse of that original line-up early in the 90’s. Like many fans from that period, it’s taken the splicing of the three distinct incarnations of the band back into one to reignite my love of their music – the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts.
The Pumpkins United reunion was captured with a the Live In Madrid album recorded a few years back, and a Blu-Ray snapshotting bits of the global tour, but that really was a reunion Greatest Hits package. However, that led release of a full-length new self-titled studio album in 2022, for which this double live album is a superb memento of. Our estimated princeps Matt and I had the pleasure of catching Helloween on this new album tour as the world was emerging from Covid back in May 2022, and what I can remember of that night was spectacular. The lack of memory can be blamed of the bizarre craft beer pub we found in a backstreet near Brixton Academy, but the band left an indelible performance on my memory nonetheless, and suddenly I was that delighted eighteen-year-old again (only with added arthritis).
For those who have been living in a hole in recent years, the reunion of this Euro Power Metal legend brought singers Michael Kiske and Andi Deris duetting the vocal lines, with founder Kai Hansen stepping up to the mike to medley the Walls Of Jericho material from the days before they had a dedicated singer. The new album went further, showed how confident they had become, borrowed a page or eight from the collaborative opera Avantasia project (which inspired the reunion in the first place) and saw all three of them splitting the vocal lines across the new material.
It works really well. Despite all being quite high register and ranged singers, they are also very, very different and having the powerhouse guitar playing of Kai Hansen in the mix is always going to work. Especially live, because like Iron Maiden retaining Ganick Gers in the mix when they rebooted, having three strong guitar players means all the tricks that you can mix into the arrangements in the studio can be done live without all that cheating with click-tracks. Well, you still need those to time big stage productions like these guys are now delivering, but you get the point…
This live performance at Tokyo’s legendary Bukokan is a milestone for the band and splices a generous handful of tracks from the recent opus and lots, and lots of content from the rest of their extensive discography. Obviously for old farts like me, hearing Kiske bringing back Keeper Of The Seven Keys era material will always send a chill down the spine, not least because his vocals are impeccably still in that original register, but the spread of material over the years is fairly evenly distributed. Deris also gives him a good run for his money, and has as much of a range, so those two compelling frontmen splitting the work is nothing short of epic. They could have taken the simple route of alternating the front spot, with each singer taking the lead on the songs from their respective eras, but they don’t - they share the load, with each bringing new nuance and dimension to the others material and hammering the message home that this combined gestalt is Helloween now.
Did we need another live double album this close to the last one? Possibly not, but the band have just signed a new album deal with Nuclear Blast splinter label Reigning Phoenix, and that means new material next year, and in the meantime, this warms up the palette nicely. At over two hours of run time, it’s great value for money, and despite the overlap of material from the previous live release, I’m more than happy to have a snapshot of the tour, because live these boys really can do no wrong. 10/10
Orbiter - Distorted Folklore (Salvaged Records) [Rich Piva]
There are few bands out there using the Orbiter name. The one we will be discussing today is the American band from Gainesville, FL, home of the college, cows, and Hot Water Music. The Florida Orbiter put out the excellent EP, Head Wounds, back in 2022 and are now back with their second full length, Distorted Folklore. Yeah, I hear some of the standard influences from these guys (Sabbath is mentioned in their bio, but…) but what really gets me are the Torche and Hum vibes emanating from the nine songs on Distorted Folklore. So of course, with that you get big, soaring post rock, post metal, heavy and atmospheric goodness that should attract a much bigger fan base.
Safe As Houses is the opener and is more like Hum or Failure that the more metal side of the band, and they pull it off perfectly. A band like Astronoid comes to mind too when I listen to these guys, or maybe even the Cave In stuff from Jupiter and beyond. The sound is big and the vocals make the sound even bigger. The awesome really kicks in on Time Rips, where you will hear where I get the Torche stuff from. This song is killer and the vocals are next level cool. I love how the heavy guitar and riffs are always there but sometimes you have to really pay attention to how great the guitar work is, like on Lightning Miles, that distracts you with its big, open feel and sprawling vocals.
The Pumpkins United reunion was captured with a the Live In Madrid album recorded a few years back, and a Blu-Ray snapshotting bits of the global tour, but that really was a reunion Greatest Hits package. However, that led release of a full-length new self-titled studio album in 2022, for which this double live album is a superb memento of. Our estimated princeps Matt and I had the pleasure of catching Helloween on this new album tour as the world was emerging from Covid back in May 2022, and what I can remember of that night was spectacular. The lack of memory can be blamed of the bizarre craft beer pub we found in a backstreet near Brixton Academy, but the band left an indelible performance on my memory nonetheless, and suddenly I was that delighted eighteen-year-old again (only with added arthritis).
For those who have been living in a hole in recent years, the reunion of this Euro Power Metal legend brought singers Michael Kiske and Andi Deris duetting the vocal lines, with founder Kai Hansen stepping up to the mike to medley the Walls Of Jericho material from the days before they had a dedicated singer. The new album went further, showed how confident they had become, borrowed a page or eight from the collaborative opera Avantasia project (which inspired the reunion in the first place) and saw all three of them splitting the vocal lines across the new material.
It works really well. Despite all being quite high register and ranged singers, they are also very, very different and having the powerhouse guitar playing of Kai Hansen in the mix is always going to work. Especially live, because like Iron Maiden retaining Ganick Gers in the mix when they rebooted, having three strong guitar players means all the tricks that you can mix into the arrangements in the studio can be done live without all that cheating with click-tracks. Well, you still need those to time big stage productions like these guys are now delivering, but you get the point…
This live performance at Tokyo’s legendary Bukokan is a milestone for the band and splices a generous handful of tracks from the recent opus and lots, and lots of content from the rest of their extensive discography. Obviously for old farts like me, hearing Kiske bringing back Keeper Of The Seven Keys era material will always send a chill down the spine, not least because his vocals are impeccably still in that original register, but the spread of material over the years is fairly evenly distributed. Deris also gives him a good run for his money, and has as much of a range, so those two compelling frontmen splitting the work is nothing short of epic. They could have taken the simple route of alternating the front spot, with each singer taking the lead on the songs from their respective eras, but they don’t - they share the load, with each bringing new nuance and dimension to the others material and hammering the message home that this combined gestalt is Helloween now.
Did we need another live double album this close to the last one? Possibly not, but the band have just signed a new album deal with Nuclear Blast splinter label Reigning Phoenix, and that means new material next year, and in the meantime, this warms up the palette nicely. At over two hours of run time, it’s great value for money, and despite the overlap of material from the previous live release, I’m more than happy to have a snapshot of the tour, because live these boys really can do no wrong. 10/10
Orbiter - Distorted Folklore (Salvaged Records) [Rich Piva]
There are few bands out there using the Orbiter name. The one we will be discussing today is the American band from Gainesville, FL, home of the college, cows, and Hot Water Music. The Florida Orbiter put out the excellent EP, Head Wounds, back in 2022 and are now back with their second full length, Distorted Folklore. Yeah, I hear some of the standard influences from these guys (Sabbath is mentioned in their bio, but…) but what really gets me are the Torche and Hum vibes emanating from the nine songs on Distorted Folklore. So of course, with that you get big, soaring post rock, post metal, heavy and atmospheric goodness that should attract a much bigger fan base.
Safe As Houses is the opener and is more like Hum or Failure that the more metal side of the band, and they pull it off perfectly. A band like Astronoid comes to mind too when I listen to these guys, or maybe even the Cave In stuff from Jupiter and beyond. The sound is big and the vocals make the sound even bigger. The awesome really kicks in on Time Rips, where you will hear where I get the Torche stuff from. This song is killer and the vocals are next level cool. I love how the heavy guitar and riffs are always there but sometimes you have to really pay attention to how great the guitar work is, like on Lightning Miles, that distracts you with its big, open feel and sprawling vocals.
Every turn of Distorted Folklore brings me back to the 90s/early 00s post rock stylings of Hum and Failure, and this is a wonderful thing. Timeworn is such a perfect example of this. Same with a song like Coil, which brings a very cool bassline too. The most 90s of the batch is the much more chill and sparser I'll see you on the backside of water…but it is no less awesome and works as a great atmospheric bridge between all of the huge sounds on Distorted Folklore. The sound and comparison I keep coming back to is Hum, and that is alright by me, when you have tracks like Cicada Hymn and Svalbard.
You will not hear me complain when bands are influenced by the ones I mentioned related to Orbiter. If you dig that sound and get as excited as I do when Hum and Failure are mentioned then you are going to really dig Distorted Folklore. 8/10
You will not hear me complain when bands are influenced by the ones I mentioned related to Orbiter. If you dig that sound and get as excited as I do when Hum and Failure are mentioned then you are going to really dig Distorted Folklore. 8/10
Caressing Misery - Lost And Serene (The Circle Music) [Simon Black]
Caressing Misery are a side project formed by guitarist Zac Campbell and vocalist Julian Aust’s deep love of old school 80’s and 90’s Gothic Rock – a style of music that went underground even back then and has stayed deeply so ever since. There used to be whole labels catering to this sort of material, such as the wonderful and sadly defunct Nightbreed from my hometown of Nottingham, but this is the first time in a long time something new from the genre has landed on my review platter in a long time.
The height of the movement seemed to be the late 80’s, almost as a counterpoint to the colourful excesses of everything else that was going on in the decade when you couldn’t move for black lace and crimping irons but started to fade when the 90’s shifted musical direction. I’m not sure that was a bad thing at the time, because even the genre’s nod to more extreme styles of music when it went Darkwave rapidly got repetitive, and the challenge remained the risk of everything struggling to sound original. Even it’s close cousin the doom movement felt the wind of change, with bands like Paradise Lost sounding more like Depeche Mode for a while, so it’s a refreshing change all these years later to hear an act that both absolutely traces its influences back to the very roots of Goth, whilst sounding fresh and modern.
The opening bars of Swansong Of The Night immediately evoke Andrew Eldritch stylistically, but as the album progresses it’s clear that despite sticking in the baritone register, that Julian Aust has a lot more range in his pipes, adding far more subtlety, mood and emotive depth to the lyrics and within two songs I’m not interested in comparisons with the influences than I am listening to the product. These two are the heart of the project, and apart from a couple of guest appearances on a couple of tracks all the music is handled by Campbell, although it’s his fluid and moving guitar work which really makes this work.
It’s moody, moving and mellifluous despite the darkness, and if I have a negative it’s that the tone does not vary too much. A Thousand Seasons does take the tempo up a bit, but the challenge always remains that this is a genre of music that rarely shifted its tone and style, which is part of the reason it died out. The fact that it sounds contemporary, rather than a straight retro tribute is why it works though, and a couple of plays in I can tell I am hooked. 8/10
Weapon Of Pride - Beneath The Surface (Wormholedeath Records) [Rich Piva]
Stoner thrash from the Arizona desert? Sure, I’ll bite. Weapon Of Pride certainly bring some desert/stoner influences on their new record, Beneath The Surface, but what dominates is some serious 80s thrash love lurking under the sand that wants to leap up and engulf you during the 46 minutes or so of their new record.
The opener, Axeman, rips, but I think listeners will need to get used to the vocals a bit. Staying in the 80s thrash discussion, it is kind of like having to get used to the guy who sings for Megadeth to truly understand the genius of those early records. There is a high-pitched punk snarl to the thrash influenced vocals that may be jarring at first but really work once it sinks in and clicks. These guys are not afraid to shred, like on the solo for this opening track. Speaking of shredding and Megadeth, how about Priestess? This track is way more thrash than anything stoner, and I am just fine with that. I could have done without the horns on Carni, which is probably my least favourite track on the record, but I get it as it relates to the 80s thrash vibe you get from the whole album, and there is no denying the solo rips up the place.
On their website the band mentions they are for fans of The Sword, The Atomic Bitchwax, and Fu Manchu. I would counter with Megadeth, Overkill, Scatterbrain (the more straight-ahead songs), and Destruction when listening to songs like Wrath and Awaken. I really dig the track Siren, which is a slower paced thrasher that incorporates some killer traditional metal stylings and like ten different vocal styles. I also really like how the bongos and bass interlude of Floating leads to Shredder, which does just that. Temptation has a nice groove too it while the closer, Into The Storm doubled down on the heavy with a nice southern style metal crunch to go along with the thrash love.
Yes, the record is probably ten minutes too long and yes, the vocals take some getting used to and yes, this is way more thrash than stoner, but when Beneath The Surface is good, it shreds and rips you up with no end in sight. Weapon Of Pride brings us a fun record for fans of 80s thrash who dig the stoner stuff too and can argue the positive point of view for Mustaine’s vocals. 7/10
Yes, the record is probably ten minutes too long and yes, the vocals take some getting used to and yes, this is way more thrash than stoner, but when Beneath The Surface is good, it shreds and rips you up with no end in sight. Weapon Of Pride brings us a fun record for fans of 80s thrash who dig the stoner stuff too and can argue the positive point of view for Mustaine’s vocals. 7/10
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