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Interview: Henry Rollins (The Partae)
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Tom Valcanis
They Call This The Act of Dating
A stoic and smartass' view on modern dating.
They Call This The Act of Dating

The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #1

Emerging drug-addled and content so begins our arduous climb to the peak of the list, reclaiming the frost-covered Hammer of the North…

#1
Grand Magus - Hammer of the North
You know an album’s gonna be good a round about by the end of it. But you know an album will become a classic when you hear the first riff. For Grand Magus’ Hammer of the North, as soon as the “hammer” fell, out bounded a hot, jagged riff worthy of endless praise: I just knew it was going to be a special record.

The fusion of classic metal riffs, blues and doom metal has been done before. I’m sure we can all agree. But there’s a spirit to this record that I just can’t place. I feel myself drawn to it time and again. Even when I’m feeling low, this album cheers me up. Not one for cheapening my metal, I even had the aforementioned riff from I, The Jury as my mobile phone ringtone for a time.

The masculine swagger that courses through the music reminds one of Tarot – but Tarot have never been sounded this creative. Even the devil-may-care approach to soloing – often gratuitously – has one lamenting for his guitar ability, cursing the faux-guitar resting atop their games console for allowing such chicanery. The soulful bellow of Janne “JB” Christofferson sounds old school yet fresh at the same time. Black Sails sounds like if Dio, Ritchie Sambora and Dave Murray got together – its doom metal with a pop-metal finish that sounds cunning and heavy as anything else. It’s madness to even think it, but the Grand Magus boys pull it off. It’s this strange case of Swedes imitating Americans imitating Britons and back again – elements of those Southern hard-driving blues riffs can be heard on the track Northern Star yet they fuse the NWOBHM style gang choruses within as well. Are these but mere mortal men or some manner of metal gods?

They’re the modern masters of the blazing gallop that still has that stoner rock “who gives a shit” attitude. It’s real cigarette in the tuning forks, sweaty rock and roll. Is it thinking biker’s music? Unpretentious progressive metal? Who knows! It’s so twisted you just end up smashing your brain up against opposite sides of your skull. You just can’t get enough of this record. A future classic to be sure.

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...stay bookmarked for a NEW take on Top 10 lists...the self-critique!

The Top 10




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The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #2

Finished in the Golden Hall of Asgard we descend into the long darkness - into the Spiral Shadow...

#2
Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
I went to Georgia. I met the devil down there. Luckily, I escaped with my sanity and balls in tact - just. It's like another world - a world I'm lucky to escape from. Nevertheless, I'm still able to enjoy what the state has to offer - namely the seductive insanity that Kylesa produce each time they commit their sound to tape (or hard drive.) 

It does feel like this record is from another world. It's like a metal album that's slipped up through the portal depicted on the cover, landing in your hand from a parallel universe. If they want to beat both their drumsets to dervish-like guitar patterns, they will. If they want to pen browbeaten marches with an oozing Celtic black magic jig through the middle like Crowded Road, then it's a case of "fuck you" - they will. It's metal that feels scary because it's so alien yet wonderful. It's not done ironically like The Sword (thanks for nothing, guys) or as pretentious, pompous "art" a la Isis; it's a criminally enjoyable fusion of unadulterated brutality and jammin' sludge melody.

The track Don't Look Back was lent a considerable portion of my initial review just dedicated to its deconstruction:

Don’t Look Back is a true original. It’s in a league of its own. Imagine if Weezer made good on their promise to bring “Death to False Metal.” This is what it would sound like. Cascading, bright power-pop riffs abound this track, the right amount of despondent longing in the vocals with “oohing” and “aahing” female harmonies bubbling underneath; it’s some of the slickest songwriting you’ll hear all year without a doubt.
It stretches the limit to what metalheads will find acceptable - sludge metal, grunge and psychedelica heard on the same record? Are you shitting me? No - I'm not. That's why this record is so damn good. Crushing, wicked and brilliant.





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The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - #3

Emerging out of frosty isolation we fall through a portal to fight a battle with the ancients in a Sacred World...

#3
 Blind Guardian - At the Edge of Time
When I first put on At the Edge of Time, I felt an all-powerful stirring in the room. As military-style drums pounded below bombastic orchestral hits punctuating the air, Hansi Kursch took the reins of the musical juggernaut from the mass of choral voices. By the chorus took hold, I had risen out of my chair, my fist raised to the sky in triumph. Seldom do records compel the body into what the heart desires but this one did many times over.

Though power metal has been in an almost irrevocable decline in recent years, ever since A Night at the Opera in 2002, Blind Guardian has emerged as the Byzantium to a crumbling Rome. Their command of melody and rhythm as metal musicians writing pieces for symphonies and choirs is simply unsurpassed.

In Ride into Obsession, it sounds as if the band sweeps itself up in the music, scarcely keeping pace with the colt-like rhythm. Tanelorn (Into the Void) is a welcome return to their earlier speed metal sound while the epic closer Wheel of Time outclasses their contemporaries with a Middle Eastern inspired marsala, replete with Arabic instrumentation and exotic melody.

Of course, Andre Olbrich's vibrant fret runs in tandem with Mr. Marcus Siepen sound invigorating as ever. Mr. Frederik Ehmke provides the percussion assault with the requisite expertise we've come to expect. They haven't shed the propensity for gravitas they cultivated on Nightfall in Middle-Earth nor have they forsaken the blistering, visceral thrashiness perfected on Imaginations From the Other Side - it's a synthesis of all of their work, impeccably polished with new and intricate touches.


Speaking to Mr. Kursch earlier this year, he believed that music spoke a magical language and they were just one of its many interpreters. If this is the case, Blind Guardian are like the men of letters of old - to be revered with awe.





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“The universe is change, life is what our thoughts make it.”
— Marcus Aurelius