Andrew Danso

Yep, we decided to hold back on the original release date of the new album. Amongst other things it simply never felt finished. Since then, I’ve used the time to go back, iron a few kinks out, and make additions to the record. It’s turned out to be something much different in comparison to Blue Hat. I would say far and away calmer, progressive and spacious – but I’d hate to be screening everything on top of PR jargon. I really wanted to delve into making something lovely before heading back into heavy technical material. Anyway, we’re almost there.

The project has been renamed, and it’s getting a facelift art wise too. It’s called “Find”, which with smooth planning should be out early to mid Spring – Summer. I’ve been working with designer Maarten Kleyne very closely, and we’re planning on documenting the creative process that we’ve been through online. I’ll also be moving from MySpace & Blogger to my own website – more on this as we plough on.

As for live shows, I haven’t decided. “Find” features quite a few friends and musicians that I’ve grown with over the years, but I haven’t assembled them as a band. Technically it’ll be a tricky gig to pull off live too. We’re not sure yet.

1. Devin Townsend Project – Ki (Hevy Devy, 2009)

2. Cynic - Traced In Air (Season of Mist, 2008)

3. Meshuggah – I (Fractured Transmitter, 2004)

4. Celtic Frost – Monotheist (Century Media, 2006)

5. Opeth – Deliverance (Koch, Music For Nations, 2002)

6. Virus – The Black Flux (Season of Mist, 2008)

7. The Faceless – Planetry Duality (Sumerian Records, 2008)

8. Steven Wilson – Insurgentes (KScope, 2008)

9. Jimmy Ågren – Various Phobias (Garageland Records, 2008)

10. Decapitated – Organic Hallucinosis (Earache, 2006)

My most anticipated for 2011: Devin Townsend Project - g h o s t

Powerplay issue #129

It’s one thing to boast fancy production as a selling point for your album, but when it backfires, those preconceptions are catastrophic. This was mastered at the Cutting Room, Stockholm Sweden, (the big boys such as Opeth, Paradise Lost, and Gorgoth all go here for mastering too) yet the entire album sounds cluttered, the vocal is muddled inside guitar frequencies, the guitars themselves sound muddy and the drums feel sticky, as if a machine has just been plotted to rhythmically accompany the riffing.

The music itself is a mash up of progressive death metal. Of the Archangel claim exotic metal an appropriate tagline, but this is far more of the icy uninspired Scandinavian type, than anything of South American origin, and therein lies their problem. All of this misdiagnosis is relevant to the entire release, in that it’s supposed to be something completely different. This is supposed to be an artistic, emotive, punchy and atmospheric conceptual album based on a spiritual book, but on playback this is just another metal album based on a spiritual book, and that’s about it. The Brazilian quartet sound ideas right the way through, but they’re only ideas and are in need of some sort of post-production input. They lack the nous to pull off the widescreen landscape sound, they desperately want to achieve, and slump into a brand of metal that doesn’t have anywhere near the bite it ought to.

5/10 Powerplay issue #129

It’s difficult to understand what Virus are really about. Their first instalment “Carheart” was an art-house auteur, quirky and manic as you like, with the sounds of spoons, crazed yelps and a Toyota Hiace laden everywhere. “The Black Flux” was an insight into doomsday, a reflection that the world was going to hell in a handcart. So, where does “The Agent That Shapes The Desert” sit? It wants to find that middle ground between the manic and depressive, or fleet between the two – and it does this very well.

If you throw enough at a target, you’ll eventually hit the bullseye, and this is exactly what Virus has tried on their third release. It pans off in familiar territory, from quirks to obscurity, mania and humour, dark and light, and it’s not surprising that such a talented bunch can mould all of the said themes, into a coherent avant-garde record. But, because this is the sum of previous parts, The Agent... isn’t near as powerful as The Black Flux, or as broad minded as Carheart, and it’s not meant to be. This is a much more restrained outing, demonstrating that Virus are now comfortable in between their doomsday mania, and it’s nothing short of joyous.

9/10 Powerplay issue #129

If you glance at “Reflected’s” album artwork you’ll notice a question mark slap bang in the middle. This may well be a cryptic message from the band themselves, telling us ‘We don’t know what we want this to be’, to which we aptly reply ‘we know you know that’. “Reflected” is an album hopelessly confused. It doesn’t know whether to be artrock for a few minutes, light hearted Saga the next, and the neoproggy Marillion thereafter – it is all these things and none, that’s ultimately a trivialised reflection looking down memory lane.

Despite its progressive stamp, “Reflected’s” direction comes entirely from the vocal, performed by the newly recruited Janine Pusch, and this is the records biggest pitfall. Pusch’s lead role appears to be as free as possible, disregarding key change, track complexion, choruses and energy – it rubs off as if she’s singing in the Tub, with no sense of track playback. The music isn’t great either. If you nitpick, you can find coherency here and there, but otherwise it’s a complete long winded mess, with guitars conflicting against the vocal and wish wash production to match. The biggest thing reflected on Central Park’s second release is age, and confirms that this is a breed of progressive rock, dying out for the better.

3/10 Powerplay issue #129

If you’re a retrograde artist, surely nostalgia should be taken with a pinch of salt, because whilst InVertigo are clearly a very good prog pop bunch, it’s difficult to take this brand of rock that’s so clichéd, so wrapped within 80’s sensibilities, at full face value.

The technical quality of the German five piece is irrefutable, as they ascend and descend from rock progressions and vocally lead choruses to massive instrumentals, something that their pioneers Yes would be proud of. If you could justify that Liquid Tension Experiment’s progressive soap box was in some way palatable, then InVertigo might have a chance. For everyone else, try not to vomit on the way out.

6/10 Powerplay issue #129

Katanga, guilty as charged, are a borrowing act. Borrowing in the sense that they’ve roamed across the goth rock genre, and simply lifted the best parts of said populous acts, pieced these sections side by side, and released “Moonchild” with different artsy track names. Yep, that’s cynical, but nowhere near as cynical as releasing an entire album built on rebooting several franchises in order to sell a couple of CD’s. No doubt, you’ll get this same review next month.

The outcome is obvious: German band does Ramstein, Manson, and Fear Factory, sells a few CD’s and plans the sequel. The worst truth about “Moonchild” is that since Katanga have stuck so rigidly with the source material, it's actually an excellent goth rock record. It has an edge, an industrial swagger, and the mandatory Type O Negative similarities throughout its length, that give these German headbangers a sense of false premise, and copycat exploitation. Don’t expose a goth-rock virgin to Katanga’s second release, they’d instantly fall in love, and that would be the worst crime Katanga could commit… putting copyright aside.

5/10 Powerplay issue #129

Broughton’s Rules aren’t quite the anachronistic post-rock demons this critic was initially expecting, reading through the press release. Instead of the usual assault on the ear, they’re much more interested in building vast soundscapes with their instruments, (which have a make-up of guitars, drums, pedal boards, the occasional use of a computer, and the odd bit of vocal) that progressively wind up and down as the track counter ticks on.

It’s all extremely coherent with soaring elegance, unexpected turbulence, and unsettling stillness. The warm textures reminiscent of Sigur Ros, the rocky sequences building in climatic nature. “Bounty Hunter 1853” is very much a soundtrack without a picture, an adventure without a protagonist; jump in with two feet.

9/10 Powerplay issue #128

Alunah suffer from an identity crisis, with their music much more embedded in classic roots, than what they say themselves to be psychedelic doom. It’s wrong, this is a classic prog rock outfit, which perhaps flirts with the ideas of sludgy doom, and trippy psychedelia - otherwise it’s a label only stamped for effect.

Personality conflicts aside, “Call of Avernus” kicks things off lethargically, but it’s only when Alunah decide to break free of their stuffed shirt genre reservations, do they really find their feet, and the first track “Living Fast In An Ancient Land” is really indicative of this; starting at snails pace before switching through the gears into a classic rock riffathon. Soph Willet nails it half of the time on the record, with a dynamic performance, reminiscent of Kelly Johnson (Girlschool). The other half feels misfitting, crying out for something more powerful and less melodic, something to punch above the muddy wall of powerchords. Whilst this is certainly a prickly debut, it doesn’t quite get underneath the skin, psychedelic, doom, classic, progressive, or whatever category applied.

7/10 Powerplay issue #128

Intronaut are roundly known as a prog metal outfit, as they tend to blend all of their established mentors into one listenable package. They fleet along the lines of Opeth, Cynic, Mastodon and Gojira; that’s not to detract from this talented bunch, they merely adapt ideas from their masters template and show a lot of brazenness at mimicking in their hierarchies footsteps.

Valley of Smoke is a colourful grab-bag, littered in several visions and executed with great imagination – if over the top at times. There’s the odd jig of time signature in track “Miasma” which then jives into a delayed jazzy prog thrill. “Elegy” is more of a Gojira downtuned assault, and “Sunderance” is far direct in its aggression, layered above the double kicks. Taking into account the above, there’s an annoying flow about the entire release, a coherency missing that has to be expected when laying so many cards on the table. But, ambition is short-sighted, and Intronaut are slowly unravelling the blindfold.

7/10 Powerplay issue #128

Frisky, fun and frayed best describes Smell My Pillows first full length album. There’s something refreshing, something dignified to be able to laugh at yourself, in light of a congested market; to disregard a self awareness, to just be, and this four-piece from Minnesota really aren’t hot and bothered about making record deals, or attracting a huge crowd. How cool. They racket in the same vein as Cure, Zeppelin and even flirt with the eccentric nature of The Bloodhound Gang, so if their sole goal is to only make decent noise you’d think they’d be imitating the right bunch, and the popularity should follow suit.

Like most of these alt-pop-rock crafts, they make or break it through the lungs of the chosen vocalist, which handled by Mike Matheson showcases a mixed performance, if bordering on the wrong side of tame. The record excels in space and downtempo, and when Smell My Pillow decide to slow it down, particularly on tracks “Kissing The Grand”, and “Katelyn”, it turns “Off Switch” into something much more punchy; more adventurous – shame then the rest of the album trails behind, in wish-washy, rocky tedium.

6/10 Powerplay issue #128

The press release may read math-rock, but there’s much more of a soul, a heart to Talon’s than the description of purposeful time signatures, resulting in the splitting of an Atom. This isn’t so dull.

There’s vast energy, complexity, intelligence, and straight-up riffing on Hollow Realm that makes this much more of a muscular affair than something a scholar would sweat over. The seismic production helps sweeping you off your feet every time the sextet decide to go a bit haywire in there controlled chaotic aphorisms. The complementary violins don’t half help too, in not just adding another layer, but a cohesion that would otherwise be missing outside of the strings distinguished maze. Preconceptions away, (and disregarding the acts repetitive repetitiveness) this lot stimulate the sense like a Scott O’Dell novel, and not some equation you were asked to solve at 16.

8/10 Powerplay issue #128