June 2023 Listening

Oftentimes, music is like a comfortable pair of slippers. It’s very easy to just slip back into something warm and fluffy when the mood strikes1. Many of the things I’ve written about here in the last few months have been bands that I’ve listened to for a very long time, or are new albums by bands that I’m familiar with. So this month, it’s time to try wearing something new…

Bring Me The Horizon - There Is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let’s Keep It a Secret.⌗

I’ve spent many a year silently judging these guys. They’re popular, they must suck. I’ve heard that they play… metalcore. Urg, why on earth would I listen to them? So, in order to ruffle things up a bit, I thought I should actually see what they’re like.

Dear reader, I’m terribly sorry to tell you that I was right all along. I should have trusted my instincts. Picking this album because the name was interesting, I did my best to listen through the whole thing from end to end. To be fair, my first impressions weren’t horrendous. I can certain understand why this is something like a gateway drug to heavier music for a younger generation. Somewhat crunchy, the guitars are enough to get the head nodding somewhat, although it does get a bit samey after a few tracks.

Then the vocals kick in. Fuck me. They are awful. Just like last month’s review of Woods of Desolation, it’s the singing that puts me right off. His voice makes me feel a lot like I imagine how Dani Filth’s vocals irritate other people, like nails on a blackboard. And that’s before a few tracks in, when the song Blacklist starts. It is a truly awful song, with appalling rapping, terrible vocal effects, and mundane music all coming together in an effort to sound - I don’t know, tough maybe? Whatever it is, I pretty much just shut my brain down at this stage, and the rest of the album went by in a blur, with nothing redeeming appearing afterwards.

I know other review sites try and listen to an album multiple times to understand it properly, to discover as many nuances to the music as they possibly can. I’m really glad that I didn’t have to do that here. I’ve heard Hell, believe me - I listened to it.

Night Crowned - Hädanfärd⌗

After the ordeal that was BMTH, rather than retire to the comfort of a well-known album, I ventured further into the unknown. Having recently discovered the Metal Archives Random Band feature (sweet $DEITY, there’s some truly random stuff out there), I kept clicking it until something interesting sounding came up. That something was Night Crowned, and their 2021 release Hädanfärd. Having been around since 2016, I hadn’t heard of them before, but with a description of “Melodic Black/Death Metal” and themes of “Nihilism, Death, Apocalypse, Darkness”, they sounded like they could be right up my street.

Starting off with a creepy piano-led intro that brings Cradle of Filth to mind, blast beats leap forth to set the scene. These quick lead to a melodeath-style chorus that wouldn’t be out of place on an Insomnium platter, before the blasting resumes. This is a common pattern throughout the album’s runtime, with moments of hyper-intensity mixed up amongst the melodeath. It works reasonably well, although the songs feel stronger when they slow things down a bit. The blast beats feel like they don’t necessarily add much, and could be left out to no great detriment.

Stylistically, there are moments that remind me strongly of a faster CoF, Dimmu in their Puritanical phase, or Insomnium when things melo out. Individually, these are all pretty good influences to have, although they sometimes don’t gel together well. It can make things feel a bit busy at times, which is a shame, as they do have some very good numbers here (Rex Tenebrae is great!). Overall, my toes were tapping, my head was nodding, and my hands were doing fake air-blast-beats, so it’s definitely worth a listen.

Sleep Token - This Place Will Become Your Tomb⌗

I’m just a bundle of fluffy randomness this month. Sleep Token are another one of those bands that I see mentioned a lot, and frankly, their stage get-up seems like a lot of fun - think Imperial Royal Guard meets Steven Erikson. Does the music live up the imagery? Not really IMO. But there were some interesting things to uncover…

Firstly, before listening to This Place Will Become Your Tomb, I listened to their cover of Hey Ya, being quite a fan of the original version. The cover is… very different! Slower, more brooding, more melancholy. These are all good things when it comes to music! It left me wanting to see what kind of original music Sleep Token would write. The answer, after a few songs, was “Music like Coldplay getting bored one day and cranking up the distortion a bit”.

The album starts off with Atlantic, which begins with a quiet piano-led section. A plaintive voice sings over some melancholy keys. His voice definitely reminds me of Coldplay vocals, which is something I’ll be bringing up with my therapist. The track builds things up nicely and then halfway through the song, the pianos are replaced with some chunky guitars and some interesting drum patterns. This tends to be the pattern that many of the songs follow - gentle voice-led intro, some electronica or piano backing the vocals, before the wall of guitars kick in, only for it to fade out quietly at the song’s end. I suspect the songs would differentiate themselves more if I could be bothered to read the lyrics, but since I didn’t, they did get a bit samey after a while.

There was a bit of a Pain of Salvation (circa In The Passing Light Of Day) vibe to it. If the mood strikes, this will be an album I’d be not-Grumpy to return to. Still can’t get rid of the Chris fucking Martin feeling though.

Autrest - Follow the Cold Path⌗

I don’t know where I saw the reference to Brazilian band Autrest, but I’d had their debut full-length 2023 album Follow the Cold Path bookmarked for listening to. I’m definitely glad I did, as it is a fantastically atmospheric release, all done by Matheus Vidor on his own! One-man bands have often impressed me with their sheer musical ability, and this one definitely helps further that view2.

December Dusk kicks things off with a suitably majestic keyboard intro before black metal trem picking signals the start of some very well crafted atmospheric black metal. Blast beats don’t appear immediately, which gives the music a chance to breathe somewhat before they inevitably kick in. They definitely don’t dominate however, with a piano-led section in the middle of the song leading to some soaring passages to close the song out.

This is an album where melody is the dominating factor, not speed or harshness, even though these elements are present. It’s an uplifting listen that calls Saor to mind at times. The result is a sometimes dreamy recording, your head nodding along as you float above the music. At a trim 42 minutes, FtCP doesn’t outstay its welcome too. A great debut, and an artist who I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.

Iron Maiden - Senjutsu⌗

As part of my preparations for seeing the mighty Maiden at the O2, I thought I’d better give Senjutsu another go, having really only spun it one and a half times when it came out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a complete fustercluck this time around. The first 3 tracks actually work pretty well together, and I can see that they’re trying for something a bit different with them. The Writing on the Wall has a Benjamin Breeg vibe to it too, which is never a bad thing. The Days of Future Past is actually a good song - catchy, reasonably paced, and not too long.

Unfortunately, it’s not all sunshine and black rotting roses. The back end of the album is not great, and very much outstays its welcome. Death of the Celts is a slower, worse version of The Clansman, and Hell on Earth can go to… somewhere else. Both of these are far too long and not interesting enough in the least to warrant inclusion. The Time Machine is also a fail, with nothing particularly memorable about it at all.

As with The Book of Souls, it feels like there’s a reasonable 40 minute album buried in the 82 minute runtime. It’s just fucking hard to find. Given that this is the third album in a row like this, I can’t seem them varying the formula too much going forwards either, which doesn’t promise great things for the end of their career. Still, there’s always the early albums to go back to. Especially Somewhere in Time.

  1. I think I’ve stretched this metaphor too far. Who in their right mind deliberately goes to wear their slippers for no apparent reason? What kind of mood would you have to be in? The mind boggles… ↩︎

  2. Not all one-man bands are created equal though, as a number of shitty one-man goregrind outfits will attest to… ↩︎