#145 Altar of Plagues - Mammal

I nearly went to see Altar of Plagues once, but I couldn't get into the venue for being under-eighteen at the time. I'm not dwelling on it. Honest. That's by the by though - "Mammal", going on album title alone, holds promise of something which is far from the traditional, occult strain of black-metal which I'm partial to, and the artwork further cements this likelihood. I wasn't mistaken.

At fifty minutes long, but also only four tracks in length, Altar of Plagues definitely preach from the book of long songs. I don't entirely understand the form of "post" black metal, but I'm beginning to develop an ear for it, and it's present here. The soundscapes on the album are melancholy, with hypnotic song length and indeed instrumentation - the guitars lean much more towards a vast, muted and sad sound, with well-executed repetition, as opposed to any kind of black-metal onslaught - at the points in which the guitars do become faster and angrier, the sound is still that of a void, and even at their most intense, the songs sound, for want of better phrased synaesthesia, wide and haunted by feeling. The guitar sounds distinctly fuzzy and crunchy in these instances, almost as if it's peaking a bit, but this works well in the musical context, and really adds to the atmosphere. Talking of which, atmosphere is certainly something which the band have in plentiful supply, and I've not heard an atmosphere quite like it anywhere else - It's not as epic-sounding as some other bands with a post-rock influence, and it's not as cold and misanthropic as others. It sits somewhere in the middle, with a surreal and almost urban-sound, even before one leads the cryptic, poetic lyrics. I've certainly heard the band described as "Urban black-metal" and although I can't explain it, my ears certainly agree. The music seem very human, and as odd as it may be to say, has an oddly anthropological feel to it. 

The bands appeal is certainly more down to the atmosphere and tone of their playing than from any degree of technical proficiency. The musicians are tight, and don't slip-up once in the entire album, but the playing isn't massively technically impressive. That, by no means, should be interpreted as me saying that it's bad. Far from it - but the enjoyable nature of the music is down to the atmosphere, tone and mood which the band conjure, and not due to any degree of flash musicianship. There is perhaps a little more going on the songs than could acceptably be called minimalistic, but its not far from it. This too, is not a bad thing - anyone who listens to this kind of thing knows the value of the music being hypnotic, and Altar of Plagues manage it really well. The songs have enough "action" to be scintillating, but also have parts which linger and let the listener wonder through a soundscape for a while. In a sense, I found myself not listening to the instruments as such, but to the atmosphere itself, and I hope I've not completely missed the point in doing so.

I've been meaning to listen to Alter of Plagues for an extremely long time, but this is just about the first time I've gotten around to doing it properly. I can safely say that the album is enjoyable - definitely the kind that need to be listened to, not simply played while you do something else. An engaging and somewhat mind-altering release.

I think this is a 7/10.

Links:
Altar of Plagues Official site
Altar of Plagues on Facebook
Altar of Plagues on Metal Archives

#144 Black Breath - Sentenced to Life

Once in a while, something which really pushes the boundaries comes along. Plenty of the bands I've listened to in life are "interesting", but it seems that Black Breath are a little beyond that. The bands mixture of death, thrash, crust, crossover and plenty of other stuff as well is altogether ensnaring to my ears. "Sentenced to Life" is still a newborn album, but is already being acclaimed by plenty of people, and judging by what I've heard through the speakers so far, so it should be.

"Crushing" immediately comes to mind from just about the moment the first song kicks in. The riffs are immense, made even stronger by an absolutely gigantic, satanically-possessed-buzzsaw guitar-tone which sounds like something between Hail of Bullets and a diesel locomotive. Beneath the guitar is a nicely audible bass which gives the song a very crisp, almost diabolical-sounding murkiness. In addition to crushing, the songs, without exception, are truly unrelenting, with the heavily crust/crossover influenced vocals pounding the song into a rhythmic and rabid hurricane with their almost percussive aggression and structure. I don't usually intentionally swear much in my reviews, but sometimes it's utterly necessary; Black Breath, in this album, take the listener and give them a fucking maelstrom of headbanging fury. It's not all about crushing riffs and vocal lines, however - there are some genuinely good solos and lead-parts, in a pretty good ratio to the monster-riffing. The band manage to demonstrate that they're technical quite proficiently, but more importantly, also sound good doing so.

I tend to find, perhaps through some incompetence of my listening-ability, that I usually make a divide between bands which make me appreciate their energy and speed, and bands which have a powerful atmosphere. Black Breath seem to do both. While being bone-crunching in all of the right ways, the band also sound dark, occult and altogether evil. The churning, ominous murkiness present throughout their album, along with sinister leads, and even sinister riffs and solos, really hammers home (pardon the artwork related pun) the blend of atmosphere and brutality which seems to have, and rightly so, attracted the attention of a lot of fans. It takes a good album to make me feel genuinely excited, and this one has done so. I throw around the phrase "unique" more than I strictly should, but I'm pretty certain I can get away with it here - What Black Breath are, and what they have conjured in this album, really is unique. It may be only about thirty-three minutes long, the songs may be short and swift, but this album packs the most punch of any album I've heard this year. Like Anaal Nathrakh but a little bit sedated. In a very, very good way.

I'm not sure what else to say. When I post reviews, I don't tend to urge people to listen to the bands in question. This time... do it. I cannot conceive of a reason, if you enjoy extreme metal, not to enjoy Black Breath. This might well end up being one of my favourite albums this year.

This is 10/10. Did you expect me to give it anything else?

Links:
Black Breath Official site
Black Breath on Myspace
Black Breath on Facebook
Black Breath on Metal Archives

#143 Manilla Road - Open the Gates

"Unsung heroes" is a word which is thrown around a lot. I'm fairly confident that Manilla Road are a band deserving of the title, however. Releasing albums with a loving cult-following since their inception in 1977, and arguably dodged a cultural bullet by splitting up for most of the 1990s, Manilla Road are a band worthy of far wider reach than they receive. I'm never quite sure how to approach a band with such a loved discography, so I took the sophisticated step of picking "Open the Gates" because I liked the artwork.

What the USA contributed to traditional metal before the existence of thrash is something frequently overlooked, but it's safe to say that bands like Manilla Road were among the groups to contribute. I'm not entirely sure where "Open the Gates" fits in the bigger picture of the band's history, but as their fourth studio album, I'm confident that this shows the band on good form - young, energetic, but also well rounded and experienced. The bands overall sound seems to be more influenced less by punk, as British bands like Iron Maiden were, and more influenced by traditional rock, which is reasonably apparent throughout the album, especially in the drumming style, which is more complex and embellished than that encountered in a lot of the NWOBHM. That isn't to say that the album sticks into a very thin band of style - in fact, there's a lot going on; Parts which sound very rock and roll in their intensity and groove are juxtaposed with heavier sections. "Weavers of the Web" has a heavy, speed-metal style riff which is a cut above a lot of the album in terms of punch, while "Heavy Metal to the World" is practically thrash. In addition to this, a decent portion of the album also carries an epic vibe, especially the nine-minute long piece "The Ninth Wave", which is something almost akin to mid-tempo power-metal, not least in it's King Arthur based lyrics.

The albums vocals, as ever provided by Mark Shelton, the band's backbone, are varied, from a traditional rock style vocal to a more epic sounding singing voice, which is put to especially good effect in the more theatrical, grandiose songs. The variety in singing voice highlights the way the album as a whole is put together - every single song is a little different, and while they fit together well, they also don't overlap hugely when it comes to style; It's as if, at this stage, the band were happy to do a bit of everything; Epic songs and attitude-driven ones sharing the spotlight. This gives the album something of a motley feel, but doesn't detract from it's flow - the songs sufficiently share attributes to make transitions between songs of different persuasions non-jarring. I found myself enjoying the epic material, which has quite a unique, non-cheesy atmosphere, despite it being about what would later be the cliché power-metal subjects (Dragons and other fantasy) as much as the heavier music, which offers a memorable and energetic injection of rock and roll attitude. Of course, a good number of the songs, especially towards the end of the album, also combine the two a bit more readily, which is even better.

I always worry about reviewing bands which are cult-classics, for fear of missing the point. Manilla Road seems to be no exception. Despite enjoying the album from start to finish, I still ponder that perhaps I still don't quite get it. I can see many good points, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable, dare I say, masterpiece of a record, but I certainly can't claim to know it in the same sense as a die-hard fan of the band would.

Worries aside, this is an 8/10.

Links:
Manilla Road Official Site
Manilla Road on Myspace
Manilla Road on Metal Archives