If you’d put this CD on, almost everybody that loves classical music, with hints of more modern music in it (because of the sporadic use of modern instruments) would tell you that this is fantastic music. You wouldn’t even suspect this was written by a metal band. As a matter of fact this music could even have been used as the soundtrack for some or another fantastic movie, like Lord Of The Rings for instance.
This South Wales based 5-piece Metalcore act was founded in late 2001, has since released a demo, 2 EPs, and a preceding debut full-length, and have toured ll over the UK and Europe with the likes of Parkway Drive, Suicide Silence, The Chariot, Everytime I Die, Becoming The Archetype, Bury Your Dead, Raging Speedhorn, Funeral For A Friend, Crowbar, and many, many more...
At first I thought I was listening to a clone of System Of A Down, but I had to rethink my first opinion afterwards. Viza is much more than a simple clone of aforementioned band. While with System Of A Down I find it hard to listen to a complete album, this was not the case with Viza.
It’s been seven years ago since the last ‘new’ album was released by this German band. They did release a compilation and a DVD in that period however.
I’d almost forgotten about the existence of this band, but I was greatly pleased by this new effort. It’s not innovative, but somehow it manages to mix epic power metal à la Manowar with classic heavy metal à la Judas Priest. Now both of the aforementioned bands have always been high on my list of preferred bands, so imagine what a combination of both styles could do.
Since I received both the single and the full album at the same moment, I found it a bit stupid to write two distinct reviews.
This is the second album by this Belgian/Dutch band, that I’d never heard of before. To say they play hard rock wouldn’t do justice to their music. This is much more than plain hard rock. It’s more something in the vein of poppy stoner rock, with also hints of other genres hidden in the songs.
This Melodic Rock/ Metal Czech quintet was founded in 2007, and as far as I know their line-up has always consisted of lead singer Ray, guitarists Jeff (also backing vocals) and Sasha, bassist/ backing singer Marian, and drummer Frankie.
I have been so lucky as to be able to follow this Canadian band since the release of its debut album Once Only Imagined (review posted 06/09/2007). Already a stylistic sensation on that record, the guys (and frontlady) improved on their style for the sophomore album Lullabies For The Dormant Mind (review, again by yours truly, posted 01/02/2009) and, frell me, if they did not go through yet another progression since! And that this progression is definitely a positive one, is something I want understood from the get-go...so we don't get any mistake in about that, okay!?
Within Darkened Disorder got recorded and produced by Andy Classen at the famous Stage One Studio (Varg, Suidakra, Graveworm, Prostitute Disfigurement, Belphegor, Obszön Geschöpf etc.) and was originally released and distributed in 2011 through Twilight.
While hardly the most original band in the world, In Aevum Agere treats the listener with slow and mid tempo doom and epic metal. The riffing and vocal melodies show the unmistakable influence of Solitude Aeturnus, Candlemass, Warning,…but the production could be punched up a little bit. The vocals fit the gloomy music very well, but next time he has to put more emotion and power into his singing lines. The band sounds tight and tends to work in the service of the songs rather than to showing off their technical chops.
One of the true underground prog metal bands in Italy, Helreidh (one L) is resurfacing after an almost fourteen-year hiatus with the release of their new Fragmenta album.
