Tribe Of Ghosts – City (Self Released) [Matt Bladen]If D.I.Y was a genre then Brighton’s Tribe Of Ghosts would fall into it, having attempted to define what they wanted to be with live shows and previous EP, becoming their current four piece line up has allowed them to solidify not only their line up but setting concrete foundations for their signature as a band.
Tribe Of Ghosts welcome you into a dark abyss, their industrial/post metal soundscapes are inspired by our seemingly endless descent into the dystopia we were warned about in science fiction novels. We move further and further past the point of satire, increasingly succumbing to greed, corruption and inhumanity, Tribe Of Ghosts bottle these feelings of unease and rage and release them back at the listener to inspire connection, catharsis and possibly incite conflict against it.
The dystopian narrative is part of the records wider concept, an unnamed city somewhere in the not too distant future where the ruling class are unopposed and can do whatever they want while anyone else is made to suffer, you could say it’s all a bit Black Mirror, but it’s maybe a little too close to home.
The concept allows for musical experimentation, using more synths/samples and electronic elements in conjunction with, not set against, post metal atmospheres, haunting electro-pop vocals and blasts of extremity, the counterpoint harsh/clean voices delivered immediately on
Hive, released as a single in the run up to the album release and on the stop/start of
False Gods.
What I thought was very interesting, because I'm a nerd is that the production isn't one note. They could have easily jacked everything up to make it sound clinical and mechanical like so many industrial-esque acts. Tribe Of Ghosts use varying production methods, huge walls of sound, fuzzy analogue recording, white noise, distortion, pop punchiness to make this record and the storyline breathe, giving each track it's own lifeforce through how it is performed but also presented with production/mixing/mastering.
It sounds like a labour of love, the definition of Tribe Of Ghosts as a band, their collective vision undiluted by labels or trends. Fantastic, uncompromising, modern metallic music that's difficult to categorize but will have wide appeal. Join the tribe!
9/10Andy Gillion - Exilium (Self Released) [Richard Oliver]Known for his ten years as guitarist and songwriter for Mors Principium Est and his unceremonious removal from the band, Andy Gillion has forged on since with video game soundtracks, a second solo album based around vintage video game music and now his third solo album
Exilium comes crash landing.
Unlike his previous two albums which were mainly instrumental albums, Exilium sees Andy not only tackle the majority of instruments but also vocal duties in a fully fledged progressive and symphonic melodic death metal masterpiece which will remind you what an integral part of Mors Principium Est that Andy was during his ten year duration in the band as Exilium sounds like the spiritual successor to the Seven album which was his last one with Mors Principium Est.
Anyway enough about his former band as Exilium is pure Andy Gillion and if you enjoy melodic death metal with insane guitar playing then you are going to want to get this album down your ears. It takes the progressive and symphonic elements of his first solo album NeverAfter intertwined with melodic death metal ferocity and crafted into a far more song based album with the added addition of his vocals.
For his debut vocal performance on a record, Andy absolutely nails it with some excellent harsh vocals perfectly suited to the melodic death metal style as well as a few clean vocal moments which also suit the music perfectly. He also drafts in Brittney Slayes from Unleash The Archers for guest vocals on the excellent As The Kingdom Burns but he shows he is more than capable of holding his own on songs such as Prophecy, The Haunting and the title track The only instrument which Andy doesn’t perform is the drums which are handled more than capably by David Haley of Psycroptic and if you have heard his drumming before you know he is an absolute beast.
I have thoroughly enjoyed Andy’s previous solo albums but as I much prefer song based albums rather than instrumental works I can safely say that this is his best album yet. If you enjoyed the four albums he did with Mors Principium Est then you will most definitely love Exilium. The only criticism I can really level at the album is that it is slightly repetitive but it doesn’t drag on with a lean runtime of around 35 minutes and when it sounds as good as it does who really cares about repetitiveness.
Exilium is eight songs of gorgeously crafted melodic death metal with sublime guitar playing and a stunning mix and mastering job which any self respecting melodeath fans need to get blasted down their ear holes. 9/10
Sandveiss - Standing In The Fire (Folivora Records) [Rich Piva]
I am drawn to stoner rock bands who understand and have mastered melody. Bands like Greenleaf and Psychlona who have perfected the art of the melodic earworm without compromising on the heavy part of their sound. Another band I throw in that category is Sandveiss. The Quebec City, Canada band got my attention big time with their last release, Saboteur, from way back in 2019. I have been waiting patiently for a new record, allowing their Sabbath covers EP to hold me over until the time we got new music.
This is one of those band that if they came out in the early 2000s would have had multiple hits on rock radio. A song like The Masquerade from that record is so catchy and stays with you, that is what kept me going back to Saboteur. I am happy to report that the new record, Standing In The Fire, is chock filled with stoner rock heavy melodic anthems that will bring the band even more fans and more appreciation for their understanding of heavy melody.
Standing In The Fire has a whole bunch of memorable songs that will keep you humming them all day as well as air guitaring their riffs, because there are plenty of those to go around too. The opener, I’ll Be Rising, has them both, as the chorus and the riff combine for quite the killer start. The title track is super melodic and heavy, reminding me of something from Doctor Smoke or The Watchers, but less evil, and that is OK, not everything needs to be evil. This song could absolutely have been a rock radio hit when those things existed. Wait And See is a three-minute ripper where the band picks up the pace and rocks out.
A band like Fuel hand multiple hits, Sandveiss could have been bigger than them, given how they can write some very heavy and accessible songs. No Love Here is the longest track on Standing In The Fire, playing the role of The Masquerade from the last record, almost a sequel to that track, In that it is big and glorious and shows their love of Zeppelin as well as their love of Sabbath. The middle part of this one just rocks. Great stuff. Fade (Into The Light) is another up-tempo rocker where some synths come into the mix with great results.
Gone Away is more heavy melodic goodness with some excellent vocals and a great solo while These Cold Hands is along the lines of the also excellent title track. The closer, Bleed Me Dry may be my favourite track, as the chorus is one of those earworms they have perfected while also probably their heaviest track on the record.
The new Sandveiss record was exactly what I wanted as a follow up to their excellent last one. You get more of the heavy, more of the melody, their band’s excellent playing, and song writing ability that makes these songs last. Standing In The Fire is another excellent record by an excellent band who is in their prime right now. 9/10
Pyracanda - Losing Faith (FHM Records) [Simon Black]
The period around lockdown and immediately afterwards saw a massive flurry of releases from bands no-one really knew about from all over the world whose press releases indicated that we really missed something significant in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but here they now were resurrected all these decades later for our delectation and delight. There’s a bunch of things happening here…
Whilst some of these acts were ones that never really got anywhere outside of their home countries at the time (or indeed signed by a label), some were definitely around and managed a few releases in that period. We forget this in this age of the internet, but the reason that they bands were not widely known back in ye olden days was because unless you were signed to a major label (or an independent like Noise that had a good global distribution contract), then you had no hope of getting noticed beyond your local region to the rest of your home country, never mind outside of it.
Some mothballed acts found that lockdown also gave them a chance to dust down old these projects, as with time on their hands, and access to the kind of technology to digitally tinker with recordings of old that never saw the light of day (and whose labels were no longer active), so old material got a new airing, and acts defunct for decades reformed and got started recording from scratch to boot.
A combination of all of these things seems to be happening here.
Pyracanda hail from Koblenz in Germany, and were cutting their brand of traditional Heavy / Speed Metal as the 80’s were fizzling into the 90’s on the now defunct German No Remorse Records label (not to be confused with the still very much active Greek label of the same name that founded in 1998), whose biggest roster hit was Blind Guardian, but sadly not big enough to stop them folding just after their debut Two Sides Of A Coin was released.
They hastily found a home for their sophomore on Aaarrg Records, now also defunct, although that might be because the Monty Python team wanted sole use of the Castle Aaarrghhh! gag for future releases of the Holy Grail movie. This just in time for Grunge to wipe out any interest in the genre and make survival into the decades to come almost impossible unless you really had established a global fan base, which was a bit hard for a band who had only managed to ping pong around a couple of small German independents.
Pyracanda hadn’t been active since 1992 but reformed in 2020 and this is the first new material since then. This is the point where I need to raise the subject of another fad common in this current decade – that of the lengths that acts go to in trying to make modern technology emulate 80’s analogue sounds.
This record totally sounds like it should have come out in the mid-80’s when the Speed Metal phenomena was ripping a hole through Germany in the wake of Metallica’s breakthrough, ironically so, given Pyracanda’s debut was in 1990. The engineering, the arrangements and the mix totally make this feel like something left in the bottom of a filing cabinet at Music For Nations and to be fair, does a better job than many at retaining the edge many releases from this period had.
To be honest I’m not a fan of this approach, given that most of the sounds they are attempting to recreate were best left in a past decade, but that’s because bands mistake capturing the energy of those old recordings (a consequence of the speed and lack of budget of their birth) for the actual recording settings and mixing. If the sound engineering was so great, then why have successful acts that kept going spent so much time and money remixing and remastering their back catalogue?
Plus, a good producer should know how to encourage capturing the zeitgeist whilst still sounding good. I get it for young bands trying to emulate the heroes of their parents’ record collections, but for a band that was there at the time I would have expected that they would instead grasp any opportunity to sound new modern and relevant, not go for retro nostalgia… The danger is that the end product sounds like a pre-production demo, not a finished album, which sadly is what is happening here.
The other challenge I have is that this really isn’t breaking new ground content-wise, and there are plenty of acts both old and new that keep the feel of the style alive and kicking. When you focus too hard on a production gimmick, the songs can get neglected and in this case it’s the writing letting things down. The songs follow their template genre formula, and are workmanlike, but there is nothing here that grabs me by the throat and makes me want to come back for more. To be fair I can see this being more effective live, with a crowd to bounce off of and a fatter sound blasting out, but if you don’t work the magic in the studio, then pulling an audience is going to be a challenge in this age of the global brand. 5/10
