The Six Stacker - Battle Tested

WAR! What is it good for? Well, making certain people very, very rich. I recently read The World in Six Songs, where “music cognition” researcher Daniel Levitin tried to figure out why humanity expresses itself in song, and why we love it. Well, he has several neuroscientific theories. Music helps us transmit information, elicit friendships, and deal with the decidedly un-scientific phenomenon of love. Can he figure out why The Eagles aren’t cool yet Fleetwood Mac are? Afraid not. Anyway:

March In Arms - Pulse of the Daring

What’s the difference between hard rock and power metal? No really, someone tell me. It’s about three stray snips by the barber’s scissors differentiating a bit of back length from full-blown mullet. If you squint, you might be able to tell. South Dakota’s March In Arms has all the genre trappings of power metal, perhaps with a bit of thrash mixed in. Think a less morose Iced Earth, maybe. MIA’s diamond-in-the-rough lungsman (and guitarist) Ryan Knutson straddles the silver blade dividing a James Hetfield from a Jon Bon Jovi. Who’s to say they can’t be both? It will churn along in my mind, no answer forthcoming.

March In Arms craft catchy tunes about war. Not military history in the mould of Sabaton. Through our Swedish history buffs we learn what happened. In March In Arms’ case, we feel what happened. The ruthlessness, the futility, the human grinder that is modern mechanised conflict. Sabaton almost glorifies war with a patriotic fervour. March In Arms laments the soldiers who never returned home. The lyrics in certified headbanger 1914: Fathers and sons/your broken bodies/forever lie in these fields. Ouch.

Ten songs in all, each are constructed with precision and a deft hand - anything less than perfection would be a slap in the face to our fallen heroes. Three guitar attacks (sorry) are seldom used so efficiently. Twin leads and chugging riffs edge upon schadenfreude in An Act of Valor; that flag on your sleeve/Well, it don’t mean a thing/your national pride/or the anthems we sing/When your death is at hand/those who’ve been there they know/We’ll stay with you brother until it’s time to go. All ten tracks are killer, varied, and add just the right amount of strings to rend steel hearts into puddly mush. Highly recommended.

Frozen Dawn - The Decline of the Enlightened Gods

The Iberian peninsula is hot for black metal right now with bands like Gaerea and Wormed burrowing up through the muck and taking on the wider world. Spanish black metal outfit Frozen Dawn have switched to Indian super-label Transcending Obscurity for their fourth record and by golly it’s a big ‘un.

Black metal, at least the practitioners and adherents I’ve witnessed, is not a fun genre. It is very serious business. Frolicking around is for power metal fairies; headbanging until cranial injury is for thrashers. Black metal? This is art. This is real. This is not stupid idiots in corpse paint traipsing around forests breathing fire. It’s steeped in mysticism and occult incantations. So I’m told.

It’s so difficult to wed black metal to the wider metal genre, despite its stylistic similarities. When I used to talk to European metal bands, they seemed like fun guys living the dream of playing music in return for beer. Black metal bands are a different breed altogether. We know that pro wrestlers are practising kayfabe whenever fans are present - black metal? I have no idea if it’s an act or not.

Frozen Dawn seem to want to put a bit of fun - not levity - but fun into black metal. They do it through the influence of “n’ roll” type bands like Dissection or Necrophobic (and they cover Blinded By Light, Enlightened By Darkness as the last track.) Though opening with howling winds and snow, Mystic Fires of Dark Allegiance is bursting with pointed riffery and whinnying guitar heroism. It’s not all blastbeats and Wagner either; Spellbound is pure King Diamond worship, while Frozen Kings pulsing riffs and arpeggios might see the local Turbojugend tapping their toes.

Though subversion of expectations has a bad wrap since Rian Johnson fucked up Star Wars, that’s pretty much the order of the day with Frozen Dawn. They zig when black metal purists expect a zag, all while keeping things rooted in the black metal tradition. It’s not accessible in the same way Dimmu Borgir is, but god damn this album will make a lot of metalheads very, very happy.

Black Therapy - Echoes of dying memories

Someone much smarter than I, I think it was Sophie Benjamin, said music reviewing in the post-Napster era devolved into “you will like this if you already like music like this” and in the Spotify now, music reviewing is all but irrelevant. Genres aren’t audience defined but producer defined, so they can fit into Spotify recommendation silos. Italy’s Black Therapy are essentially sadboi Scandinavian melodeath in the vein of Ghost Brigade or Insomnium with a bit of that ye olde October Tide thrown in. This is despite reviewers being fed (and swallowing) that this is somehow melodic doom-death, which is a big fucking stretch.

Opener Phoenix Rising certainly radiates Omnium Gatherum vibes; tight arpeggiated riffs laying down bleeding into minor key legato gutters. I mean, I love this type of shit. I would eat it every day for breakfast and never complain. Echoes of Dying Memories (the song) could have been a dusted off Discouraged Ones B-side and I really would never have known (save the death vocals, something Katatonia vocalist Jonas Renkse is no longer able or willing to do.) It’s melodic death metal in a slower tempo - I mean, name one break-yer-neck Dark Tranquillity song (that isn’t Lost to Apathy). Most of their stuff is what modern audiences would call mid-paced. Then again, what the fuck would I know. Uhh, if you like the bands I mentioned you’ll like this too. SEE WHAT I DID THERE???

Kataklysm - Of Ghosts and Gods

Quebec’s Kataklysm have become a mini institution in death metal, taking on the “Northern Hyperblast” moniker well before the Archspire dudes begged their dads to spend a cool hundo on their first acoustic. Ever since around In The Arms of Devastation, the technique took primacy over the deathiness of their metal. Of Ghosts and Gods is their twelfth album and the only one to win the Canadian Juno music award in the Heavy Metal category for 2016. Cool.

Kataklysm haven’t reinvented themselves, though almost by osmosis, they’ve absorbed bits of contemporary deathcore ala Thy Art Is Murder; The Black Sheep’s roar and flames die down into what could almost kinda sorta be a (gasp!) breakdown - though monstrous middle-8s aren’t exactly unheard of in death metal. Right??? The Hyperblast cometh in whiplashers Marching Through Graveyards and Vindication, and you’ll want to throw fists down at the sound of stomper Carrying Crosses. If it doesn’t make total sense through your speakers, it’ll click when you’re in the mosh. Because this is where Kataklysm ought to be experienced.

Everdawn - Cleopatra

Rushing toward us in a storm of riffs and majestic synth orchestra, I half expected Everdawn to launch into the first lines of Wishmaster by Nightwish. A re-formation of Midnight Eternal featuring Mike LePond (bass for Symphony X and so many bands I dare not count) these New Joisey natives are a symphonic power metal outfit centring around the gilded soprano pipes of Canadian Alina Gavrilenko. If I was a little more drunk than usual, I’d wonder if this was a Tarja-era Nightwish cut I’d somehow overlooked. The quality is certainly there. Production is wall-of-soundy enough like an Epica or a Kamelot with the galloping riffs and noodly guitar to match. This is no more evident on the title track, infused with Middle Eastern flavour and an air of mystery, Alina taking the spotlight and carrying the song into mythic Alexandria. A definite highlight is the rockier cut Infinite Divine featuring Thomas Vikstrom of Therion, a natural pairing warranting a warn groove or two. For fans of female operatic vocals, you can’t not like this.

Decipher - Arcane Paths to Resurrection

I am not sure why but this raw black metal band from Greece reminds me of latter-day Therion, if they tended toward aggression instead of melody. There is a tug of war going on between balls out destructive riffery and introspection through leadwork and easing off the gas. They do lend a sense of moving through some kind of purgatory, each movement of Lost in Obscurity cycling through pain, relief, and suffering once more, aided by choirs on the absolute periphery of our perception - if you aren’t paying complete attention, it will just smear into the fuzz and fury of guitars. There is a case for placing them closer to Enslaved rather than Emperor, though the comparisons don’t hit the mark in terms of ingenuity and innovation, they’re a good enough baseline for figuring out where these Greek grimlords are coming from - and where they may very well go.