When The Deadbolt Breaks celebrate their 20th anniversary with their tenth studio album, In The Glow Of Vatican Fire, similarly to fellow avant garde purveyors of macabre psychedelic doom Crippled Black Phoenix. They are a band who exist in the netherworld, the last musical remains of a destroyed world, holding together the husks of humanity with moments of melody through pummelling heaviness.
Formed in 2005 by bassist Steve Wieda and vocalist Amber Leigh, their reliance on dissonance and experimentation has kept them on the fringes of genre classification but this is band who embrace their counterculture position has seen them appear at stoner and doom festivals as well as SXSW.
Amber is what I would call a vocalist, she doesn't always have to use words to convey emotion, soaring with some impressive vocalisations on the opening dirge that is The Scythe Will Come. Her contributions to the band cannot be underestimated, she has the vocal gymnastics of St Vincent or Siouxie Sioux, joined by the low Nick Cave-like delivery of Aaron Lewis who is also the guitarist of the band. Giving the fuzz-drenched stoner riffs to the post-punk goes black metal Coffin Walls and the brain bleeding, dystopian heaviness of The Chaos Of The Water, where Wieda's bass throbs threateningly as Rob Birkbeck's drumming leaves plenty of room for breath between the asphyxia.
The album is dissonant, harrowing and at times a difficult listen but then it's supposed to be. It's inspired by "man’s infinite capacity for cruelty" In The Glow Of The Vatican Fire isn't introspective, it's downright depressing, emotionally jarring and driven by the intergalactic nihilism of Lovecraft. Joaquin Gouin adds more sonorous lows on glacial moving The Deep Well, giving the album another heart-wrenching vocal performance on another monstrous cut.
In The Glow Of The Vatican Fire is the sound of a band at peace with their sound but not with the world. Doom of a very special kind, this isn't just music, it's an experience. 9/10
Phantom Spell - Heather & Hearth (Cruz Del Sur Music/Wizard Tower Records)
We now live in a world without Magnum. The band have all but called it a day in the wake of Tony Clarkin's passing, however their influence lives on, many would say in Avantasia but there's much more of a stronger presence in Phantom Spell. Having emerged from The Black Spire in 2021, Seven Sisters frontman Kyle McNeil pays homage to Clarkin, Catley and co with this 70's prog meets NWOBHM, medieval masterpiece that also draws from the likes of Uriah Heep another band now on their farewell tour, as well as Tom Galley's Phenomena and Wishbone Ash.
The latter strongly on the title track Heather & Hearth where the glorious twin guitar harmonies are plucked straight from Argus. Now McNeill has a great voice, possessing the same soulful storytelling as Bob Catley, but he's something of a polymath playing and programming everything else on this album too, from the guitars, to the Hammond organs, the drums, bass and the production too. Phantom Spell is Kyle leaning into the folky/proggy roots of British rock music, as his other band take things further into the dramatic and extra terrestrial, Heather & Hearth keeps everything grounded into the sense folklore of the UK.
Culminating in Old Pendle, a cover of a 1940's folk song about Pendle Hill in Lancashire, a place that historically is associated with witches. It's an album rich with tales and nostalgic trips into the rural past, no one song lingering too long before the next entices you into a forgotten era, be it the organ driven neoclassical likes of The Autumn Citadel and Evil Hand or the riffy classic rocking of Siren Song.
With a live band established expect Phantom Spell take the wizardry of Heather & Hearth on take to the road soon and with "The Spirit" of Magnum & Heep inside Kyle McNeill will always be true to his roots! 9/10
Double Vision - Double Vision (Frontiers Music)
A Foreigner tribute band with Chandler Mogel? Sign me up! But Double Vision are more than just a tribute now, they write their own music with plenty of melodic rock influences and even more saxophone but stay true to where they started knowing paying homage to Mick Jones' Jukebox Heroes throughout.
I've waxed lyrical about Mogel's vocals in this publication before and he's brilliant here wringing emotion out of ballad The Man You Make Me but giving a track such as I Know The Way a bit of bluesing. With Mogel up front they have a vocalist with the skill and passion of Lou Gramm but the band themselves don't slouch when it comes to melodic rocking.
The choppy guitars of Chris Schwartz and Paul Baccash on Youphoria, or their solo sections on Prison Of Illusion and others are the melodic hook of this record. There's a flair for the dramatic on the jazzy Silence Is Louder Than Words as Scott Duboys (drums) and Scott Metaxas (bass), Church Of The Open Mind leans on organs and double entendre.
Alex Lubin important to the bluesy This Day And Age, the keystone to so many of the songs his synths/organs/piano the main melodic component alongside the guitarists. You have to give it to Double Vision, they shunned the easy money of being a tribute band to record their own music and it's paid off.
Not Foreigners any more, Double Vision stamp their citizenship with their self titled record. 8/10
Laguna - The Ghost Of Katrina (Frontiers Music Srl)
The Ghost Of Katrina is the debut album from Mexican rockers Laguna. I'll rephrase that and say Mexican Melodic rockers, focus on the melodic as even though the band hail from the arid desert they have all the synthy, strutting riffage and chorus hooks of the Scandinavian melodic/AOR scene.
Though that's not all as Laguna also have influences of bands such as American acts like REO Speedwagon, Foreigner and Night Ranger with touches of the pop sound of bands such as Mr Mister (Ghost Behind The Mask) or Bon Jovi (Living On The Line) as well.
Another comparison would be with Giant who's Jimmy Westerlund produced the record with some slick, boisterous production, while adding his own talents to the rocking Punk Boy. His production showcases the guitar/keyboard rhythms and emotive vocals nicely, keeping that song writing maturity and contemporary feeling that the Scandi bands all have.
Everything about The Ghost Of Katrina feels retro as if ripped from an 80's FM radio station or the soundtrack to GTA: Vice City but there's some modernity that is always found in many of the bands supported by Frontiers music.
With the smouldering Wildfire, leading to These Chains, the propulsive Electric High and the melodic metal leaning My Syndrome, Laguna have all of the potential and talent to take over the rock world outside of South America. 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment