Unexpected review- Sonata Arctica "The Ninth Hour"

I've got You there, come oooon, You totally didn't expect me to review it after the last terrible album that I didn't even bother touching here!

I didn't plan this, but I've got a request. And since the album is on Spotify I guess I can give it a try. Will it piss me off beyond the horizon or worse- I will like it? Let's have a look



Closer To An Animal - outro is a piece of shit, the song lacks power and is probably one of the worst openers for power metal albums. Then again, I didn't care enough to check if the band still thinks they play Power metal.

Life- again, silent vocals and loud background, bad rhyming, when the guitars enter with shallow riffing vocals are close to impossible to hear, in chorus it gets better but for a few seconds we can't hear shit. Most important part is that vocals appear to be trying a bit during the chorus.

Guitars in Sonata Arctica are terrible, for once I can understand stupid comments like "Jani come back", because he wouldn't allow anyone to write that crap for guitars. Solos are decent, but pushed behind way too far. Excuse me, do you know what solo means?

Tony: oi, Pasi, the solos are coming! You know what to do, right?
Pasi: sure thing boss! *puts orchestrations even louder*

 If the symphonic elements were on levels from Days of Grays I would look the other way, but the background is also fucking poor.

The worst part is that the song is rather catchy, build is interesting and the cheesy and dumb lyrics are fitting the rest. So much wasted potential in 5 minutes.

Life is better alive

Actually, with music like that I prefer to be dead. Or better- undead, braindead but still moving. Kinda like Sonata Arctica.

Fairytale is something new, and start's ok with a lot of symphonic elements before, whoa, being somehow "heavy". But don't worry- my hopes for Sonata Arctica being good&heavy died years ago, I know how to hold my excitement.

There again, the track isn't bad, a bit confusing and unpredictable on the first listen, lack of power in vocals is also hearable. But the song has an oldschool ring to it. Solos are also here and guitars don't sound bad. Keys have an interesting part after the solo. Chorus is sadly weird in a bad way.

Outro is also weird, but works.


We Are What We Are starts slow, is a ballad with my style shitty rhyming, but overall it's sounds very good, I didn't see that one coming. Both background and the front is kept interesting, even with the slow tempo. Vocals are good here, I also can't say anything bad about the mix.

Till Death's Done Us Apart is another Zeros, it's weird, kinda fast paced but the best are the vocals, that show that Tony can still give a good performance. It only confuses me more why he sung so many tracks like shit before it. Guitars are ok, mixing actually is ok too. Oh wait, no, it isn't, the last 30-40 seconds are a mess.

See, this is my problem with the band- it was always inconsistent as fuck when it comes to style, but at least mixing was almost flawless. Now it's just as shaky as the quality of vocals.


Among The Shooting Stars is a slightly faster ballad than We Are What We Are, again it's pretty good, Tony is doing his best, the mixing isn't terrible too. It's 2 minutes shorter than the last track, but it's much easier to listen to, so it feels like it's 3 times shorter.


Rise A Night starts fast and powerful, but the keys are quite annoyingly high, and vocal tempo almost immediately ruin all the power in the track, the "find the light" is sung without any power whatsoever. Solos are ok, but the parts after are confusing, as the tempo slows down, killing all the catchy vibe I had when the song started.

Fly, Navigate, Communicate starts slowly with "sad" Tony's vocals, the rest is kind weird and surprising. The build is interesting and it's hard for me to decide if I like the track or not- I will give it another try later. The most important is that vocals and mixing are good. Definitely the most interesting and experimental track Sonata Arctica released since Days of Grays material, made me buy this album during the review. Yes, I said many times that I won't buy it, but so far I'm enjoying it more than I hate it, and I really didn't expect that.

Candle Lawns starts strong, with good guitars (what the fuck?), before it goes into another ballad. 3 on the same album? Actually I don't mind, since they are all very well made, Tony is singing nicely and mixing isn't an issue here. Also after terrible, awful, disgusting "Love" on Pariah Child it's a really nice thing. Like, trust me, I thing it's the most appreciated thing on this album for me.

Time for a big one, over 10 minute long monster White Pearl, Black Oceans, Pt. II -"by the Grace of the Ocean". Normally I would make fun of a long title like that, but I know by heart Part I of this song, I can sing it 100% correctly even though last time I saw the lyrics was in like 2008.

It's a game changer- if they do it right I might still be a fan, if not then they stay dead to me.

First 90 seconds are a very good intro, then the vocals come in. First thing I notice that everything is much softer and fairytale-like compared to the epic original. But in 2:51 vocals finally strike with good power, and add some of the longed epicness before it goes soft again. Tiny bit heavier guitars enter in 4:19, bad mixing appears with vocals being pushed slightly behind the guitars, but still maintains enough power to breakthrough. Still a minus though, it could be made so much better with a little work. Guitar solo is good, the best on the album, keys also don't disappoint BUT they aren't loud enough. After the solos the track doesn't disappoint, but also doesn't leave You breathless like both Wildfire II and III. Outro is good though, less epic, but soft and calm like the majority of this track.


On The Faultline (Closure To An Animal) closes the album, and is a continuation of the opening track, but softer and slower. Basically a fourth ballad on this album. Lyrics are top here, and it all fits as an outro of the album after White Pearl.

Run To You is a bonus track, I don't count it in a review. It's mediocre anyway, nothing interesting.

This album is far from perfect, it has issues with vocals and mixing there and there. There are no faster, catchy and simple tracks, the ones we loved on almost every album to this point. Guitars also have a various quality. Song placement on the album could be a lot better, but with that outro song I kinda understand why they open the album like that.

But it pains me to say that the album is good. It's flawed, but I found a long lost enjoyment while listening to it. Ballads are strong, White Pearl, Black Oceans didn't disappoint my extremely high expectations. I didn't have lyrics in front of me but by ear they sound very good, even if silly at times. Much less stupid and crazy ideas from Pariah Child here, and the ones that are here mostly work.

Closer To An Animal, Life, Rise A Night are all bad tracks, potential there is wasted. But 3 out of 11 isn't that bad in an album as a whole.

If I was obsessed with symbolism I would say that the band went to shit just when my life went bad as well, and since now I'm doing much better than in 2014 Sonata Arctica is as well. It's a funny thing, and only makes it all much more personal.

I still think that the band could do so much better, if someone had a control over Tony's acting, his vocals are also unstable and he forgot or can't sing with power, as he did in the past. But I see a spark of hope in this band, enough for me to buy an album and hope that the next one in a few years will be better.

Returning to this band is like returning to an ex girlfriend for me. You're reminded of all the good times you had together, everything you loved in her. But also it reminds you why it didn't work out, why it ended. And it all hurts, you are unable to give your trust again to that person, the past is sometimes too heavy to forget about it all and start again.

This is a perfect summary of my relation to that band. I probably won't see it live again, but who knows. I won't trust them to deliver good music as well. But for now I smile, the music is better than it was, and who knows? It might be a new start.

Summary:
Vocals: 5/10
Guitars: 8-/10
Keys: 9/10
Bass: 10=/10
Drums: 10/10

Additional score:
++ major improvement since the last album
++ strong lyrics
+ good cover art
+ good ballads
+ White Pearl, Black Oceans have a good continuation
= = mixing ruins a lot of stuff, could be easily avoided
= vocals disappoint too many times with the lack of power
- some ideas didn't work out


Total score: 82,5% , should be lower in a classic 100% scale, but my scores don't matter anyway


I won't post any links here because the content on Youtube sucks balls, check out Spotify instead

Album of the year 2016

I won't be original, just like a year ago. This is beyond good, it's absolutely mindblowing piece of art, and nothing comes even close. Whispered? Meh. Titanium? Please.

Insomnium was always a stable and top notch melodic death metal band, but this is an impact on a genre unseen since Wintersun's Wintersun. They are absolute masters of atmospheric music, they dance between softness and brutality. Everything about this album is just right.

They also win in a category Melodic Death Metal album of the year 2016, with Whispered being second, probably also second on an album of the year thing.

The power metal album of the year is Titanium, mostly because nothing else came out that could be a competition. New Sonata Arctica, Sabaton and Hammerfall are mediocre at best, Enceladus isn't 100% sure to release material this year and even if it comes I doubt it will beat Titanium.

Second Titanium's album is a major improvement over the first, especially on the vocal side, but I will cover it later in a review.

Folk metal album of the year goes to Equilibrium, Trollfest confirmed their album to be out next year. Equilibrium delivers an unique mix of German sense of humor mixed with extremely symphonical movie soundtracks with a good dose of black metal's glory. It's fun, soft, and begs for more replays.


Giving song of the year to Insomnium would be a bit of cheating, so instead it goes to Omnium Gatherum's Frontiers, one of the finest pieces of melodic death metal made in modern time, let's play it again!

Blogger sucks and doesn't allow to post videos anymore


I am Rhodi, and I want to thank to my readers, there are still a few more things coming out on this blog this year, but it's always fun discovering new music and writing about it here. I wish You all healthy and happy autumn and winter, take care.

Aephanemer "Memento Mori" album review

It's a review written while listening to the album on Youtube, keep that in mind.

Well Martin is back with his music after 3 long years. In this time he managed to get a whole band, with a sexy vocalist, lyrics and still wearing the same tshirt. I hope he washed it since the recording of his EP.

Unstoppable opens the album, I already covered it on this blog- it's a good track, with rich riffing and similar background sounds, while enriched with drums, bass and vocals. Since vocals are still a big mystery for me I won't say anything now and wait how they turn out in the next tracks.

Sisyphus' Bliss is a much faster track, and basically exactly what I was waiting for.

I was hoping to see how the vocals can deal with a faster track and I'm a little bit disappointed, during the faster growls Marion seems to have problem putting much power into vocals, especially during the end of a verse. Her vocals can easily go along with medium tempo tracks, but here I wish to see even more energy put into vocals, while I see less. Nothing impossible to fix though, and I have to say that lyrics here are very impressive, not only the go very well with the complex melody, they follow the subject perfectly and have some good, memorable hooks. Also Marion is growling very clearly, it's very possible to understand the lyrics by ear.

The music here is just a treat, not only complex style of writing is always the most noticable and rewarding in fast tracks, but the riffs are catchy as fuck and definitely at this point my favourite ones from Aephanemer. Background is also solid, drummer is fucking smashing the kit to pieces and I don't really hear the bass here (Youtube's fault probably). Solo didn't blew me away, but it had a nice little pause of the background in the beginning, the outro is also done very well.

But first of all, let's trick the fate 

And devote to chasing new baits 

As we escape across the void 

Let's reshape what's already spoiled 

Hellebore (ok, titles on this album are definitely interesting) starts with a guitar solo, and then goes into another fast track, but changes tempo so many times that I don't care anymore :D
Vocals here are still varied in quality, the beginning of the song doesn't impress me, but the slower parts in the middle have some good power and emotion behind it. Maybe that's the problem here, so far many vocals are sung in the same "mysterious evil explanation" way, maybe some more strong emotions in certain tracks would make the vocals more solid? I remember vocals in Titanium's "Here and Now" being very aggressive, which made them stand out from the rest of the vocals. In melodic death metal it might be harder, as growling isn't as easy to control as clean singing, but it's a debut album- see what works, what doesn't and second album will blow up the Earth :D Impact is already made by the great songwriting, and the reception is so far very positive. Which I shouldn't be talking about in a review, but who cares, my blog- my rules.

It's a long, complex track with good lyrics. It's a bit stretched-out in a few parts, the placement on the album is also kinda weird to me. It also didn't make me cum like the last track did, but maybe it's because I've been reviewing this track for 30 minutes now and many people are bothering me during the review -_-


Next we have The Oathsworn, which already starts in a interesting way, slow guitar brings a lot of emotion to the track before the other instruments join. It's another good one here, again at first vocals seem to follow the standard pattern, where I wish there were some screams, but surprise-surprise! Clean vocals are here, and they are quite good, just before the growls return this time with some decent screams, longer sounds. In the end we have some faster singing. So basically from the vocal side this is so far the best track. Lyrics are good, and I must say that the vocabulary on this album is on point, even if sometimes I think it's overcomplicated for no good reason.

I don't need to add anything about the song structure, composition and instruments behind it (actually I forgot to mention that drum patterns are on point on the album so far, not only powerful but interesting), Martin did his homework, and those silent 3 years paid off in some very good ideas and songs. It's really hard for me to find something that doesn't work here, in previous tracks I was like "ok, this part could be 2-4 seconds shorter, but not bad". Maybe this year Jouni beat him with his monster track Bloodred Shores Of Enoshima, but I expect Martin to write something like that or even better in the upcoming years :) Soft outro deserves a mention here, works very well with a similar soft intro.


Ghosts are an instrumental break, well placed on the album before we go into Sorrow And Hate...

Rage and Forgiveness, my bad. Medium fast track with some good headbanging riffs. Pretty standard vocals at this point, they go well along with the track, have some emotions behind them, the chorus is good so I shut up. Lyrics are very interesting, with some pirate vibe to it (even though it's about the assault on the Troy). Martin has some fun during the solo with his guitar, I will ignore that- it's his debut album, kid gotta have some fun with it :D

Again, can't say a bad thing about the structure and general sound- this song is another reason why I liked Aephanemer in 2013 and why I do now. It's more of the same sound, but more complex, richer, longer. Another reason to further support the band, I wanna see them evolve even further.


The Call of the Wild is next, it was online for some time but I don't think I wrote a review. Now compared to the rest of the album I appreciate the track much more. First of all vocals are full of emotion here, compared to tracks before it, clean vocals also sound very well as they stay attached to the melody. The pirate vibe to it works well with the previous track, the music on the album has a lot of tempo changes and other ideas, so 2 tracks with the same feel to it help the listener to stay on track. There are no distraction in the sound, and even though there are some changes in tempo, piano part in the middle and clean vocals it's still very easy to keep track of the song. Stuff like that also takes skill during the songwriting, a lot of different progressive songs on one cd can be pretty tiring on the first listen, and this album is very balanced so far.


(Song of the Blackest) Crows start slow and soft, before Insomnium's trademark riff joins. Vocals here are very good, lots of emotion put into them. Funny, it's just like during my review they took notes and fixed the vocals in the later songs :D We get a first scream, but it fades in comparison with the later "Shape-shifting" one, it's quite impressive.

Ye ye the music behind it is great, can't find something that doesn't work, kinda boring that it's so good. Let's be honest- I knew in advance that I will like the instrumental stuff on the album, I was mostly concerned about the vocals, adding them to complex songs and lyrics. So far it's better than I expected, with still some place for improvement in the future.


That being said we jump into a title track, Memento Mori. This is some serious business here, it sounds like the whole band was extra careful during making this one. Vocals are on point, with some clean surprises, there is no playing with the instruments and solos, the sound is very mature and Insomnium-like

How unworthy our concerns are 

Tempers, pledges and desires 

As bodies buried, nothing lasts 

This is where the sad truth lies 

the solo behind this part is on fucking point, and if anyone says that the riffing behind it is stretched-out then fuck this guy, on this track it fits. The outro is very good, with some polished lyrics to boot, hell of a ride.

Why is it a song about the death that makes me feel so alive?

Gilgamesh is the last one on the album, instrumental, long journey on a guitar. If it was another guitarist I would say it's for showing off, but Martin the Riffcrafter just wants to tell a story without lyrics this time, something that he did well on his EP. It's long, it's interesting, and doesn't remind me of any other band. It's a french silver wolf Aephanemer, finishing their debut album.



And I have to say, as far as debuts go it's definitely one of the best ones in the recent years. It clearly shows the band's strongest points- songwriting and originality in already defined subgenre.

Sometimes it may sound like Insomnium, but in no way you can call it a clone of it. The drums, bass and background greatly help to make it sound original. While the bass will take some time for me to dig up (especially from a Youtube video), the drums are on point all the time. They smash hard, but aren't dominant in sound, also much less extreme than Whispered's "double bass all the time" style of playing, which is a good thing here, the music is soft as far as the subgenre goes, and more extreme drums wouldn't fit as well as these do.

I was very concerned about the vocals, but they passed my test. There are moments where I would love to here some more diversity or power behind them, but the second half of the album really sounds better in that regard.
But the sound wasn't as important, it's blending those vocals to a complex and everchanging riffing, also getting the lyrics done well and fitting to the sound, and here I have nothing bad to say. Lyrics are better than any that I would write myself, they fit the style, vocabulary is rich and it all works pretty well.


I didn't say a word about the mixing before, surprising, because it's on point. They got the right guy behind the wheel and the final sound is just great, not a single element sounded bad, too loud or too silent. Bravo!

The songwriting is just amazing, Martin mastered the medium tempo and medium-fast melodeath songs. The placement of the tracks is solid, opening of the album is good and the outro tracks is just outstanding.
 After the listening I wished to see something totally different, like a ballad (in a style of "One for Sorrow" perhaps?) or a super fast track, Kalmah style. But it's not a flaw, just my stupid hopes, no song on the album feels like it's there only to make the album longer.


So, Aephanemer- well done. You guys (and a lady) released a debut melodic death metal album in a year where Omnium Gatherum, Insomnium and Whispered released their new material. And Your stuff still sounds great, even when compared to these monster bands. Makes me feel proud, I did well when I started supporting this project years ago.

And the best part? There is still room for improvement, I know You can do even better than that, and I can't wait to hear more in the future. Now have a drink, stop memento moring for a second and carpe diem the shit out of this bottle of wine :D

Summary:

Guitars: 11/10
Drums:   10/10
Bass: Youtube/10
Vocals:   7+/10

Additional stuff:
+++ adding vocals to instrumental stuff done very well, it was worth taking the risk
++ solid debut
++ fucking great mixing
+ good lyrics, nice themes
+ it takes balls to release an album when Insomnium does theirs
+ cool cover art
+ good running time
+ nice song placement
+ clean vocals deserve something
- one minus just because I hate France :D (and I gave too many pluses)

Final score: Baguette
134%

Oh, Martin, feel free to jump in as my 6th favourite guitarist, just behind Gunsen. I know he stinks a bit, but what You're gonna do?

music video here

full album here

LEAKED!! NEXT AEPHANEMER ALBUM CONFIRMED TO BE CALLED "PANDA RHEI", COVER ART BELOW!