| CD REVIEW Jesaiah |
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Band : Jesaiah This Stockholm based Swedish band was founded in late 2006. In their original line-up, they do their first recordings, which they release on an EP entitled Building Bunkers, Burning Bridges, somewhere in 2007 (sorry I cannot be more precise, I’m winging it with the info I’ve got!). Starting October 2008, original guitarist and co-founder of the band Devon occasionally has to be replaced at gigs when he was unable to join the band on stage, and when Devon eventually left the band in Spring 2009 due to circumstances beyond his control, it was only natural for Tobias Alpadie (who got his position with the band due to being an old friend of the other guitarist in the band – in spite of having mainly a Jazz and Death Metal background, Tobias also plays in Gordon Fights, a “cool Rock ‘n’ Roll” band) to join singer Mas Sjöblom, guitarist Joel Hjalmarsson, bassist Martin Peterson and drummer Daniel Stridberg on a permanent basis. However, before that actually happened the other four musicians had already gone through the recording process of their debut full-length album, which shows a considerable progress from their opening EP both in songwriting capacities and technical abilities. Recorded in two studios (vocals done in another studio than the instruments) the album was produced by Meleeh’s Björn Olzewski, whom gave the album a killer sound! Musically, the band stands apart quite clearly from the rest of the Swedish Hardcore and Metal scene, in that they incorporate Post-Rock elements in their Progressive Hardcore/ Math Metal structured songs. Expect sudden and unexpected breakdowns, constant tempo changes, and passages where Sjöblom exchanges his Hardcore screams against a spoken word vocal mode. To get a whiff of what this band sounds like, check out the mp3 files on the 3 songs off this album and the 2 off the EP they’ve posted at myspace.com/jesaiahband! In November of last, the band had the good fortune to tour on a higher level that they’re used to, being invited to join The Devil Wears Prada and Your Demise on a short (only 7 dates) of Scandinavia. I’ve no idea what they’ve been up to next, as the review of this album kept being pushed back in time due to an increasing amount of albums by other bands that were released earlier (and therefore warranted my attention first)…and I stupidly forgot to make an update. At any rate, this is the kind of music that makes my day, month, and year hunky-dory! Obviously, the guys at Black Star Foundation have a taste for this kind of quality music too, because I cannot remember them ever having released anything that didn’t deserve to be nominated into my year-lists! 98/100 Tony. |