Tom Valcanis

1 July 2025

Blog

The Six Stacker: Dirty and Ugly

Tom Valcanis

1 July 2025

Blog

In the Winter months, it can get really dirty and ugly - especially when there’s days you just don’t wanna get up and everybody sucks. To coin a phrase. It’s Winter and there’s not much fun to be had, especially when you’re stone motherless broke (I am right now, that could change in minute…) Here are some traxx I’ve been spinning:

The Last of Lucy - Godform

Weird name for a weird band. If they weren’t playing fret-melting tech death, what would they be playing? Twee indie rock? Something like that. What strikes me looking at the runtime of this disc is how short it is (a bit over 32 minutes) despite how many ideas one hears throughout. Empyreal Banisher clocks us over the head with lightspeed doublekick and riffs to match, lead breaks lifting off before crashing down, spiders emerging from the wreckage threatening to devour us limb from limb. This all happens within a taught three minutes seven seconds. Twin Flame is aptly titled as they chew off our ears and salve them with gentle clarinet solos (two of them!). Old school arsekicking (Sentinel Codex, Angelic Gateway) sits alongside new school dissonant, technical asskicking (Darkest Night of the Soul). Both work in brutal harmony by never belabouring the point. So much to love here.

Ollie Wride - The Pressure Point

The voice and face of the New Retro Wave is BACK! Ollie’s last record Thanks in Advance had a sexy, confident edge to it; The Pressure Point by contrast is lovelorn and weary. A Matter of Time is a bright, dare I say jaunty track that could’ve cut straight out of Buckaroo Banzai or a similar thoroughly entertaining, OTT, yet completely bonkers film. He struts through syncopated, Calypso-tinged (think Billy Ocean) contemporary (for the time) adult pop (a sax drenched The Way I See It), U2-style arena-filling homages to Radio Ga Ga, at least where that shuddering beat is concerned (Radio feat. The American English), and post-disco shuffle melding with New Jack Groove in electric dreams (Holy Drug).

Though all of the cuts are stellar thanks to meticulous production and knockout vocal performances, centrepiece Victoria is the business. It arrives on a wow and flutter of synth, Ollie’s breathy tones building tension as brisk bluesy licks accompany him, leading to an incredible release: an explosive chorus carried on the backs of a thousand pained voices: “First you tell me to go / then you tell me to stay / Your eyes are fixed on me / but you’re a million miles away” - simply irresistable. Like I’ve said so many times before, in the reniassance of 80s synthwave, Ollie Wride is IT!

Unto Others - Never, Neverland

From my Best of 2024 review:

From the hard yet jangly chords of opener Butterfly, Gabe Franco’s baritone croon, rich with metaphor comparing a difficult lover to a butterfly (I could win your heart with a melody / I could comfort you with a sweet serenade (I made) / Or I could lash my tongue in a criticism, yeah / Or put you down and pray for the tears in your eyes / I want you to die) you can just feel that this is album is dark magic pressed into thin perspex. It shifts from goth to crossover Suicidal Tendencies thrash (Momma Likes the Door Closed) to ironic post-punk meets Steinman pop (Angel of the Night) with such self-assuredness it’s almost criminal. This all occurs over three consecutive tracks, by the way. What’s even more incredible is that some of these mouthwatering cuts clock in at 7” 45 lengths: a punchy Fame, a punky Flatline, or a satisfying morsel of Blue Oyster Cult worship Hoops. It all feels like Lt. Tuck Pendleton’s bittersweet lament in Innerspace: “When things are at their darkest pal, it’s a brave man who can kick back and party.” So Unto Others did. And we reaped the benefits.

Aborted - Vault of Horrors

The Vault of Horrors is as close to a compliation or mixtape style album we’ll ever get in death metal. Each track features a who’s who in the gurgle-throatripper zoo and these Belgian goreanauts mould their necksnapping riffery to match. Archspire’s Oliver Rae Aleron joins on The Shape of Hate and it’s shotgun blasts of vocals and drums for four minutes straight. The one minute forty four fleshripper Insect Politics could slot in at a hardcore show, thanks to Jason Evans (ex-Ingested) throat stripper delivery plus semi-demi-breakdown in the dying seconds of the last act. Aborted is fun death metal. Put it on and mosh in your seat. Boom.

Opeth - The Last Will and Testament

Opeth IS BACK! Well, as far as their metallic roots are concerned. One minute twenty into §1 (yeah, I know) as their syncopated riffs crunch along, Mikael Akerfeldt growls for the first time in what feels ike 20 years (Was it 20 years? When did Watershed come out? 2008? Oh fuck) Of course, it’s metal with all the weird paisley and patchouli 70s prog weaved in; dizzy Camel-isms, Jethro Tull cribbed flute parts (§4), Emerson, Lake, and Palmer riff salad surgery, and a ton of other weird stuff only your hippie uncle has ever heard of. We’re never getting another My Arms, Your Hearse, but hey, they can (and have done) much more blander fare.

Sworn - A Journey Told Through Fire

Norway’s Sworn has its feet in two worlds: one planted in dark and mystic black metal imperium of Hel Vete yore; the other in the post-Enslaved, post-Ihsahn reimagining of black metal. How? Ohhh, Dan Swanö (ex-Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, Witherscape) produced this. Now it makes sense. Their blast-beaten Scandi-shred chops are uimpeachable, as is their Finnish sadboi tendency, an Insomnium-eqsue snowdrift acoustic break in Grand Eclipse sealing a frostbitten Northernmost deal. It’s melodic black metal through and through, though you’d be forgiven if half of Dissection and half of Omnium Gatherum showed up to the studio (under Swanö’s guidance), sprinkling in a little Emperor or Old Man’s Child for good measure. There are few - if any - pitch perfect hybrids of latter-day melodic death metal AND melodic black metal out there. It may have taken fifteen years of gruesome gestation, but the journey told through riff and lick (and fire) is well worth it.

Tom Valcanis

8 May 2025

Blog

The Six Stacker: Vale Starcadian

Tom Valcanis

8 May 2025

Blog

A piece of news that was met with profound sorrow was that of the death of synthwave artist Starcadian, aka George Smaragidis following a traffic accident riding his e-Bike. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Starcadian was a once in a generation talent. His music was built on one simple foundation: “I make ear movies.”

A visual artist by day and synth juggernaut by night (literally) he was a real synaesthete: the aural and visual blending with such ease and such force it tickled your brain in places you never thought existed. His music transcended the usual confines of the medium, his album covers resembling movie posters, each lyric concealing yet revealing another layer of his narrative.

For 80s kids who grew up intentionally blurring the line between our reality and the fantasy realms of Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, or Saturday morning cartoons (his EP Saturdaze a testament to that) Starcadian was just a given. Once you heard his sincere yet epic tunes, that was it. There was no going back. If there was ever a musician to capture the feeling of venturing beyond the stars and coming back in time for supper, it was Starcadian.

His epic opener to 2017’s Midnight Signals, Interspace, tumbling arppegios taking flight over hard hip hop beats and robot vocals was emblematic of his limitless ambition, matched by his natural aptitude for songwriting. All his songs made me feel like being a kid again, waking up on a weekend morning holding nothing but promise and wonder. Few artists could do that. The world is poorer without him in it. Vale, friend. May you rest among the stars.

Sunburst - Manifesto

Imagine Roy Khan (ex-Kamelot, Conception) joined Symphony X. That’s it. That’s the review.

This may be a jest, but it really is the collision of high gothic fantasy and high nerd fantasy metal we never asked for but glad exists. The funny thing is, despite being a Greek band they crib from two American acts pretending to be very European. Down to the neo-baroque, orchestral-led Thomas Youngblood/Michael Romeo-isms permeating tracks like Nocturne, getting back to basic wallop and chug prog pioneered by Queensryche all those years ago (also American!) heard on pared back tracks like Hollow Lies. If you like both bands you’ll love this without reserve; the relative freshness of most of this LP might convert a few recent power metal dropouts too.

Hamferð - Men Guðs hond er sterk

Written in ode to a survivor of a doomed Faroese whaling crew, Men Guðs hond er sterk, or But God’s hand is strong, begins with the roiling waves crushing all who dare traverse it in Ábær, vocalist Jon Aldara (Iotunn, Barren Earth) spitting hate at thee in bloodcurdling screams and pallbearing cleans. It’s funeral doom for sure, though at times it’s sparse and bleak and minimalistic, like Primordial playing with a box and an acoustic after getting cleaned out by thieves. (c.f. Marrusorg.) Even the grizzled old man reciting the tale (in Faroese) on the five minute closer is gripping right ‘til the very end.

Arch Enemy - Burning Bridges

1999. The year melodic death metal fractured into the mainstream; Dark Tranquillity’s Projector going goth and electro, In Flames Colony wringing the last drops of Gothenburg purity from the genre, and Darkane taking it to technical heights in Rusted Angel. Let’s not forget Soilwork’s landmark The Chainheart Machine, setting up the genre for synth drenched clean vocal crossover success. Then there’s Burning Bridges, the second effort from the Brothers Amott and one that evaded tape-trader radar… until Angela Gossow was installed after vocalist Johan Liiva’s departure. Of the lot, Burning Bridges melody in their melodic death metal is lead driven rather than riff driven, ala In Flames or Dark Tranquillity. Hair bobbling over frets in a Maiden-like yet crushing Dead Inside is the order of this disc, as is that Carcassy (I’m not sorry, Jeff Walker) death n’ roll tumbling over Seed of Hate. Can you imagine if they pulled out an OSDM slowie like the title track these days? Aficionados of At The Gates should’ve been all over this, only to walk away after releasing their punchy, MTV-flavoured turn in 2001’s Wages of Sin. That said, being underground darlings earns you cred, not cheddar.

King’s X - Faith Hope Love

The funk metal revolution pretty much started (and ended) with King’s X, with the early-90s prog metal sound owing much to this platter and the previous Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. Big bright riffs and slap bass rule It’s Love, while that quasi-psychedelic ethereal sound (think dudes in grainy black and white yet wearing coloured glasses) permeates Six Broken Soldiers and the nine-minute Faith Hope Love, passing a green-smoky baton to Dream Theater, Threshold, and Devin Townsend, taking it to its apotheosis on 2001’s Terria. Dug Pinnick’s soulful gospel-chorus voice anchors everything, wailing like a preacher in We Were Born to be Loved which highlights just how special the combination of these three musos (Dug, Ty Tabor, and Jerry Gaskill) really was. Is? Was.

My Dying Bride - Songs of Darkness, Words of Light

If Peter Steel and Type O Negative fucked in the dark, My Dying Bride just tortured lovers and cried about it after. Songs of Darkness, Words of Light delivers pain and suffering in just the right amounts, with haunting textures lain over their despair via keyboardist Sarah Stanton. It’s Hamish Glencross and Andrew Craighan crunching out woe as Aaron Stainthorpe’s baritone lies there bleeding - though there were a few risky spanners thrown into their cogs of hopelessness. My Wine in Silence (sounds like a mummy blogger’s dream), plucked big bassy guitar echoing as Stainthorpe murmurs that he’s so alone is akin to what Katatonia was doing at the time; minimalistic and introverted yet straightforward enough you could almost, almost, release it as a single. That tightly woven simplicity leaked into 2006’s rockier A Line of Deathless Kings, although Songs defiantly plants one decayed foot in their purist Peaceville grave. (Past? I don’t fucking know)

Gaerea - Coma

Pipped at the post by some very, very good albums in my Top Ten last year, Coma sloughs off black metal archetypes and stereotypes by the burning church-full (what?). Yes there’s ascending tremolos and blast beats (The Poet’s Ballet, World Ablaze) but I’d be remiss if I was to reduce these tracks to a single dimension. World Ablaze veers into piss-soaked Turbonegro territory in a middle-8, while songs like Hope Shatters unleash a cavalcade of high European monarchic orchestral glory, worthy of the courts of Barons and Princes. Grooves and whispers dominate Wilted Flower and leaves one going, how does one band pull this off so well? They go from bloated Dimmu Borgir pomp to Agalloch-ian introversion in the blink of a drowning eye. It’s phenomenal stuff. Repeated listens mesmerises one even further.

Tom Valcanis

13 March 2025

Blog

The Six Stacker: Mikael Stanne Edition

Tom Valcanis

13 March 2025

Blog

Every fifty-something I know is acting like they’re half their age. Going to more gigs than me, taking on night shift jobs to make extra cash, and riding from Melbourne to Adelaide like it ain’t no thing. Mikael Stanne has just moved the needle to that ripe old age and is rocking in no fewer than four internationally-touring bands: his OG Dark Tranquillity, the DT-In Flames hybrid The Halo Effect, Gothenburg old school death metallers Grand Cadaver, and Scandi-goth rockers Cemetery Skyline.

His daughter, Marillion (click here for some Marillion-ception), is all grown up and demands to be home are likely non-existent. Why not heap more of what you love on your plate? It makes sense. This Six Stacker has three new Stanne-led cuts on, so without further ado…

Dark Tranquillity - Endtime Signals

I was fortunate enough to see Dark Tranquillity in concert this month and they absolutely blew me away, being my favourite band of all time. That’s despite Mikael (arguably) being the only original member left. If Soilwork can put out great stuff void of OGs, surely DT can too? Yes, in the same way The Simpsons latest seasons are good compared to their legendary Season 2-10 run in the 1990s.

The Simpsons, of late, have returned their character-driven humour and heart-centric story roots. That is, Homer isn’t just a mean-spirited idiot actively trying to ruin things, dubbed ‘Jerkass Homer’ in the fandom. Instead, he’s a well-meaning buffoon, and the primary victim of his own flaws. Lisa is a know-it all, but is still an eight-year-old. Bart is a prococious ten-year-old brat again; they’re not mere vessels for shoehorned in gags and tired lines hawked during the Zombie Simpsons era. It’s thoughtful, tightly-scripted, laugh-out-loud Simpsons. But nowhere near as good as the original.

In a way, that’s what Endtime Signals represents; just like Iron Maiden can’t make The Number of the Beast again, DT can’t make Projector or Damage Done again. It’s a great, guitar-oriented DT fusing old school death metal (c.f. the tremolos on Unforgivable) and new-style Gothenburg goth-melodic death, the kind DT invented in the first place (the weepy One of Us Is Gone, led by electronics.) Some new twists are introduced, such as the panned hard-to-the front drumming (a nugget in Neuronal Fire.)

As a die-hard DT fan and just like a die-hard Simpsons fan, I’m extolling the merits of this record as a return-to-form. If anyone actually listens is anyone’s guess.

Cemetery Skyline - Nordic Gothic

As I said in my best of 2024 post:

In a way, it was inevitable. We should be grateful for its inevitability. Spearheaded by Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, Grand Cadaver, The Halo Effect) and featuring members of Insomnium, The Man-Eating Tree, Dimmu Borgir, and Amorphis both past and present, this is like the Nordic (and gothic) Power Station, featuring Robert Palmer plus Chic and Duran Duran members in. Ever since 1999’s Projector, Dark Tranquillity embraced goth wholesale via Martin Brandstrom’s Depeche Mode electronics. Freed from shackles of melodic death, Nordic Gothic is pure pale light reflected in nightime clouds electro-goth beating with a blue and yellow Scandinavian heart.

The Halo Effect - March of the Unheard

When I was a kid, melodic death metal was cool and edgy; it’s borderline dad rock now. As I mentioned earlier, Mikael is an actual dad of an adult daughter, for fucks sake. March of the Unheard is further away in time to The Gallery than that was to The Number of the Beast. Cynical types could level this as Dads getting the band back together to relive the glory days. Because in a way, it is.

All band members were part of In Flames at one point and could lay claim as the One True In Flames™. Jesper Strömblad is one half of the In Flames sound and pushes it twice as far, fingers crawling up and down the guitar as his rhythm section pounds big fuck off chords out underneath (Conspire to Decieve). It’s In Flames, baby! Fuck me, Detonate is all sorts of headbanging Colony/Clayman action brought back to life (notably Coerced Coexistence.) It’s the In Flames album we wish we’d gotten instead of Reroute to Remain. (Except 60% of this band wrote Reroute to Remain.)

It’s difficult to lend itself a distinct identity, being steeped in In Flames marinade. Does it matter? Not really, no. As a melodeath album its a cut above what’s usually produced today, and an A-tier In Flames album that just happens to have Mikael singing. I ain’t complaining.

Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God

Dissonant death metal is a genre now. Isn’t all death metal dissonant? I guess. However there’s something otherworldly about NZ’s Ulcerate, as if it’s coming in from a dark dimension parallel to our own. That feeling of alienation is palpale on this disc, like the liminal space of Sanctae Noctis at Dark Mofo. It was a nondescript shipping hall, draped in black curtains with a lone stage at the far end. It evoked that feeling of Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge - real and unreal all at once. Building on textures not unlike Agalloch or Pallbearer but as heavy hitting as soul-tearing riffery from Serpent of Old or (their arguable rivals) Devenial Verdict. If this is the furthest frontier death metal can reach, I’m glad we got there. Choice, ey.

Undeath - More Insane

Whipping one’s head back from dark and brooding to borderline mosh-inducing fun is NYC’s Undeath, resurrecting the old school back from the … undead. Dead From Beyond showcases all their influences up front: Morbid Angel’s undulating lead breaks, Cannibal Corpse’s meaty bass, and Malevolent Creation’s freewheeling double-ass kicking drumming. Though they verge on Atheist or Death-like tech levels, they keep everything pretty grounded, with CC-style big fuck off riffs dominating tracks like Disputatious Malignancy (fuck writing that out for a joke) or almost kinda sorta Gothenburg pre-melodeath style (Dismember, Entombed, et. al.) creepy beef ala Sutured for War. It’s a genuinely fun listen.

Royal Blood - Back to the Water Below

Running a band as a two-man operation (think Death From Above 1979 or DZ Deathrays) means near total rock ‘n’ roll freedom these days. Fewer egos to stroke, fewer royalties to divide, and only one manager to pay off. Back to the Water Below is fuck music like Jane’s Addiction is fuck music. It’s music you fuck to, because it itself fucks. A high kicking back beat atop Mountains at Midnight anchors a silky, devil-may-care sliding riff. It heats up like desert rock and adds in all the leather jacket-wearing sleaze rock ‘n’ roll should still be notorious for. These days it really ain’t, but these lads are doing their darnedest to bring it back (sorry, Danko Jones.) It’s right proper English when you hear slight piano returns to britpop (Pull Me Through) and funk-inspired bops like Triggers. Pop it on, grab your girl, and feel the Gs.