| CD REVIEW Boil |
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Band : Boil Oh my…let me tell you one thing: when you’re on holidays and a lazy streak hits you, you better not have an album in your cd-player on continuous play by the likes of A New Decay, because such is not inducive of getting you of your unproductive ass, and all you wanna do is just sit and lay about while listening to an album like that over and over again! Well, actually I’ve gone through reading no less than 4 books during aforementioned lazy streak, so it wasn’t really thàt much of an inproductive passsing of time, but the matter of the fact is, I couldn’t tell you for sure exactly how many times I’ve listened to this album to date. Nevertheless, I’m certain it exceeds 40 sessions, and that without giving me even a minute of boredom! Quite an achievement from this Aarhus based Alternative Rock/ Metal Danish fivesome! But before stepping onto explaining of the why’s of that feet, let’s get into the history of this band. You see, they formed in 2004 with a line-up consisting of lead singer Jakob Löbner, guitarist/ backing singer Stig Nielsen, guitarist Björn Bihlet, bassist Brian Stilling, and drummer/ sampler handler Michael Ib, and released a promo cd-R titled simply Promo 2005, the year after. The quintet started playing the occasional show (even to date that didn’t exceed 10 a year, allowing for the assumption that the guys still mainly depend on day jobs to make ends meet, and also that the music is still merely a passion thing) around their home country, and also got into the preparation of the recording of their debut full-length Vessel, which they released during 2007. Reviewers (both nationally and internationally) occasionally went a-raving over the album, earning Vessel accolades such as “Most professional release of the year” (from Musikgeil) and “One of the year’s best albums” (from Noise.fi). The album also didn’t go unnoticed in the more professional side of the music business, and in fact got a nomination for “Debut Album Of The Year” at the 2007 Danish Metal Awards. It earned the band coveted slots at the 2008 Swedish Rock Festival (they were picked among over 2500 acts to open the festival) and Denmark’s 2009’s Spot Festival. Together with the other festivals the band played at (Ravnerock, Puls, Mayhem Meltdown, Monorama Goes Metal, Rock Shock, and I’m sure I’m missing a couple), this allowed the band to share the bill of such music industry luminaries as Judas Priest, Testament, Disturbed, Def Leppard, Carcass, and Volbeat, and on top of that the band also played immediate support for Ill Niño and Illdisposed, among others. I’m sure the increased attention also provided the band with the necessary financial means to be able to have this sophomore album (recordings/ mixing from January to July 2009) mastered by none less than renowned producer Tue Madsen (check The Haunted, Halford, and Mnemic to name but a few) in September 2009. With negociation under way since the beginning of 2010, the band was able to announce their signing to Mighty Music in early March…that latter bit of info seeing me around the historical circle, and allowing me to rant a bit about the band’s music! You see, what you get here is a really nice (intended) mix of Metal, Grunge, and Progressive, with vocals that are to-die-for, because for the most part they’re somewhat subdued, but always super-clean (I’m almost certain the lead singer has had comparisons to the late Layne Staley of Alice In Chains, but personally I could only agree with such a comparison in the fictional world…namely in a world where Staley never touched drugs and had a couple of really good vocal teachers, learning him how to get the most out of his voice without having to use volume). Sure, there’s more energetic moments vocally, but no screaming-for-screaming’s-sake! Overall, you might say there’s a melancholic state of mind in the vocal style used. And actually, the most interesting part of the vocals are the lyrics underneath. You see, the band cuts into some really poignant themes of actuality, like for instance the modern tendency of both politicians, media, religious groups, and a multitude of organisations to rely heavily upon putting up a screan to hide their real intentions (usually based on greed and strictly personal gain), making it hard for people who’re noy in-the-know to divide fact from fiction. In contrast to many other bands, who would incite to revolution or extreme reactions, Boil bring their lyrics as a collective mental wake-up call! On top, the slightly progressive music, which is closer to Grunge (and even has some occasional Southern touches) in the calmer moments and closer to Metal in the more energized passages, is highly melodic. Now, I’m not sure whether you’ll get the following after just the one read-through (I’m not even sure whether I’ll be able to explain it well), but there’s always a certain melodic “basis” (provided by rhythm guitarist and bassist) the listener can cling to (and the funny thing is, even in this “basic” part of the music, there’s variations and twists), while on top the lead guitarist & drummer provides for the necessary “food” for the more experienced listener to mentally feed upon. Making things even more intersting, is the band’s used of additional percussion in a fair amount of the songs (evidently, you can hear that more easily in the more quiet moments – check “Quiet Hours”, for instance). Also, the band adds programming to “The Fall” (also again has a Southern touch in the lead guitar) and “Starless”, giving those tracks a touch somewhat different from the others. Freaky, but real nice! As you will find out from checking out the band’s page at myspace.com/boilmusic, they’ve used the likes of “Faith No More, Alice in Chains, Megadeth, Soundgarden, Tool, Machine Head, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, and more…” as the template for their music, but in contrast to many modern bands the guys have succeeded in taking out the best of those influences, and mix it into something quite their own. By all means, if the above had even the slightest attraction factor on you, check out the songs posted at the MySpace page. Too bad neither “The Fall” nor “Starless” were posted, but with 4 tracks off the album, and one off the debut, you should have enough to make yourself a positive picture of the band. Meanwhile, guitarist Björn Bihlet bacame faher to a first child, and after some soul-searching he decided to concentrate on family life. Starting January 2010, the band started jamming with several guitarists, and one Mads Vigeholm (from Tech metal act Scamp) apparently stuck out from the pack. He was given his live baptism on April first of last. His “weapon of choice” is an 8-string axe, and the band is already anticipating exciting things from future writingg sessions. As you could make out from the caption above, the album had an earlier release date in Denmark, and positive to véry positive reviews and rating have been coming the band’s way since! Let me personally add to that by giving the album a perfect rating (or how alse did you think I was gonna respond, taking in mind the opening paragraph of this review?) and a nomination into my “Best Albums Of 2010”-list. Oh gee, before I forget: our promo download of the album only had 10 songs, but the album’s supposed to have 11. Guess I’ll be goin’ out (this same afternoon) to find myself a regular copy of the album then! 98/100 Tony. |