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: OF THE WAND AND THE MOON : "Lucifer" (Euphonious Records - provided by VME) - 2 out of 5 points - |
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When I listen to this album, I tremble and get shivers all over my body. I start feeling I'm lost, I start looking over my shoulder in fear of someone watching or following me. I feel the fear of Herne - Herne the Hunter from the TV-series "Robin of Sherwood" of the early 80's starring Michael Praed, which I was so afraid of as a little boy, and that's exactly what this album makes me think of when listening to it. With the scary and melancholic way of putting the melodies and guitar chords together, I shudder. The music brings out an unexplainable gloomy and mystical, almost occult, feeling in the listener and it's very hypnotizing and fascinating. I didn't think that this kind of neo-classical folk music could have such a spellbinding effect on me, but when I sit down and let my self flow into this adventurous and enchanting world of mystery that is illustrated so convincing through the songs on "Lucifer", I'm just shocked and amazed. This isn't a disc to put on your stereo if you're depressed and want to feel better, but if you want to escape reality and take a journey into an enchanting and mystical world, you couldn't do better than with "Lucifer". Conclusively there is one thing that bothers me, though. If "Lucifer" didn't bring that same mystical feeling in my body as I got from the old "Robin of Sherwood" TV-series, I would never dream of buying an album like this, because then it would be album that I just wouldn't be able to relate to.
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Martin J
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O'HORA, TONY
"Escape Into The Sun" (Frontiers Records - provided by Atenzia) - 3 out of 5 points - |
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This review should actually be on Tony O'Hora and his magnificent voice, but since I don't really know the man (the only thing I know is that he used to sing for Praying Mantis and for Andy Scott's Sweet - bands I know absolutely nothing about), I'll rather go straight to the music on display. It's all written, arranged and played by Magnus Karlsson who seem to be the #1 man with Frontiers Records right now. Not only is he the guy behind Last Tribe, but also the man who wrote the music for Allen/Lande, Starbreaker and probably a dozen more contemporary hard rock bands. Magnus seem to be one of those guys overflooding with good songs, that just need to get out of his system. Actually, a bit like Gary Hughes a couple of years ago, when he delivered songs for both Ten, his solo stuff and Bob Catley - or like Tommy Denander who writes music for 800 different MTM Music releases these days. Ahhh, the quality songwriters of our days are apparently few, so the labels have to overuse the talent of what's available. Not that it matter much, cause most of the songs here on "Escape Into The Sun" are really good; a bit simple, a bit cheesy, but most of all very immediate. Opener "Broken Soul" is a very catchy tune, and I must admit I already was hooked within 30 seconds. The albums continues on with a lot of good to very good hard rock songs (with "Black Wings" and "Escape Into The Sun" as the best tunes on offer), but here and there you get the feeling that it's all too easy for Magnus, as all songs are written more or less over the same formula. Oh, and I have to mention this; the song "More Than We Know" sounds 99% like that big hit Linkin Park had a couple of years ago - I think it was called "In The End", but I'm not a fan of that band - just found the comparisons quite striking. Okay, let's be fair - the music serves perfectly as a display for Tony's voice, which is really strong, raspy and full of power - but it sure would have been more saying to name the disc "Magnus Karlsson featuring the voice of Tony O'Hora".
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Claus
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OKUMOTO, RYO "Coming Through" (Inside Out/SPV - provided by Nordic Metal) - 1˝ out of 5 points - |
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With both Nick D'Virgilio and Neal Morse releasing solo discs in recent years, it's about time that keyboard player Ryo Okumoto also show that he is capable of writing quality songs equally as good as his other Spock's Beard colleagues (in fact this is his third solo disc - the other 2 were released in 1980 and 1996). Well, actually he is not - sorry, but this is a typical fusion rock album of the sort that we hear way too many of each year. Too many UNINSPIRED solo projects from incredible musicians being released each year, and even such fantastic guest vocalists as Bobby Kimball (Toto), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple etc.) and Neal Morse (Spock's Beard, Transatlantic) can't save "Coming Through" from falling through… Besides a few exceptions (the Toto'esque "Slipping Down", the soft ballad "Coming Through" and the beautiful piano exercise "The Imperial") the songs are simply not interesting enough, and the fusion between progressive rock and pop melodies just doesn't work for me.
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Claus
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OLD
"Down With The Nails" (Tyrant Syndicate/Peaceville - provided by VME) - 3 out of 5 points - |
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When bandmembers takes on such names as Iron Tyrant, Doomhammer, Horus and Reaper, you already then get a clear idea of their musical style, right? Yup, we're talking about a band clearly inspired by good old Hellhammer, the originator of primitive black metal! And "Down With The Nails" got all you could desire from such a release, right from the horrible production (sounds like something my grandma recorded in her basement), the death grunts (which I thought Thomas Gabriel Fischer Warrior had patented long ago), the rhythmic shifts between slow and fast (of course with the drummer missing a beat here and there) and down to the guitar that is more noisy than well-played. The funny thing about it is that I actually like this disc - I grew up on old Celtic Frost, Sodom, Hellhammer, Venom and the like, and Old is nothing but a band set out to relive those days. So, I'm jumping on for the ride back in time, and I'm digging it…
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Claus
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OLYMPOS MONS
"Conquistador" (LMP - provided by Target Distribution) - 2 out of 5 points - |
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Olympos Mons, I must admit that I have never heard of them before. Olympos Mons is playing an odd definition of Power Metal, which I can't describe 100% as pure Power Metal. Olympos Mons has somehow, I don't know how or why, made it a new genre called Happy Power Metal. I do not think that they have it done on purpose, but it sounds happy, happy, happy … it is actually so happy that I could vomit all over the floor! The music in general is nothing that I could praise in any terms, as it is just as uninspired as their name!!! Don't get me wrong, as the music is not horribly bad - it is just so that there doesn't happen enough - it is the same 2-3 chords throughout the whole album, each and every song, and on top of that they have a singer, which they should try to get rid of. Nevertheless it is not the worst Power Metal band in 2004, as they do have some songs that are of an okay standard.
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Benjamin
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ONE MAN ARMY AND THE UNDEAD QUARTET
“21st Century Killing Machine” (Nuclear Blast – provided by VME) - 2 out of 5 points – |
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Another Swedish groove-death band. The last couple of years this particular scene has been overcrowded by lots and lots of new bands, and while some of them receives good praise in the media and become somewhat succesful, the majority slips into obscurity quicker than the time it takes me to finish dinner. One Man Army And The Undead Quartet is a band based around singer Johan Lindstrand (ex-The Crown), and he sure takes up a lot of space on this disc, with his growls and gutteral sounds. Not my favorite type of singing, but at least there’s a bunch of attitude in it. Unfortunately not one single of the songs are memorable enough to stick. I doubt it if we’re gonna be talking about this band again in a couple of years time – we’ve most likely forgotten about them as with so many other bands in this genre.
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Claus
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OPEN UP - featuring Morten Holm "Open Up" (MTM - provided by Target Distribution) - 1 out of 5 points - |
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I've got four things to say about this album. 1) I do feel sorry for the Norwegian guy behind this album, Morten Holm, as he have some kind of illness that have forced him not to leave his bed for more than a decade. 2) Isn't it kind of embarrassing to have an album out with your name misspelled on the frontcover? The guy is named Morten Holm, but with big letters the frontcover reads Morton. 3) The music here is WestCoast Rock or soft AOR, and it's not very good to be honest. It's nothing that I find interesting for any metal journalist, as there simply are no power in the songs whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, I do like AOR and some WestCoast Rock, but "Open Up" is just not rocking my socks off. 4) Finally, am I the only one wondering if Morten Holm only got his record deal because the label actually feel sorry for him? Why else use the fact that the guy is ill that much in the promotional material? Sad …
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Claus
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OPUS ATLANTICA "Opus Atlantica" (Regain RecordsV - Provided by Nordic Metal) - 3 out of 5 points - |
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This CD must definitely have been made with one sole purpose: Japan! It "smells" of commercial neo-classic power metal, so typical for the Japanese market. And yes, it is a bunch of Swedish guys playing on the album - exactly the nationality that the Japanese favor so much within this style. So what do we find on the album? Well, lots of Malmsteen, Royal Hunt, Stratovarius, Majestic, Kamelot etc cloning - that's for sure. Lots of rocking heavy metal, warm melodies, neo-classical overtones and a superb playing technique from all the participants. Wonderful craftsmanship in the playing department, but nothing new or particularly interesting to be found in the compositional section. This has all been done before, and with great success in terms of achieving something on the Japanese market, so perhaps that's why this album is so annoyingly uniform and "style-precise". With that said, I do need to mention that I actually love what I hear. The melodies are wonderful and get stuck in my head immediately, and the playing skills of guitarist Johan Reinholz (from Andromeda) are simply amazing. Bassplayer Jonas Reingold and drummer Jamie Salazar (both from Flower Kings/Midnight Sun) are really great musicians, and vocalist Pete Sandberg (known from a billion projects a.o. Jade) is quite the nice type of vocalist … somewhere in the DC Cooper vein but a bit softer/lighter. Now, if it wasn't for the somewhat annoying lisping that Pete has to his voice and the fact that this album seem to be composed with the only idea of making cash out of the neo-classical fans in Japan, I might have awarded it with a 4-4˝ out of 5 points grading. Now they've got to be satisfied with only receiving a score of three points.
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Claus
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ORDER, THE
"Son Of Armageddon" (Dockyard1 - provided by VME) - 3 out of 5 points - |
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Somebody breaks out of one band and forms another and suddenly we have 2 bands that are sounding not that far from each other musically. The Order is the new band of former GURD guitarist Bruno Spring. It's heavy metal with the emphasis on Rock 'n roll. Sounds like a mixture of Soundgarden, The Cult (hard rock days) and Pure Inc. The reason I mention the last one of those 3 bands is that the lead singer in The order is Gianni Pontillo that is also fronting Pure Inc. This album is a decent heavy metal album and that's as far as I'll go with the "thumbs up". The album is rocking away, but doesn't really grab you by the balls and drag you into the pits of hell. Gianni's voice somehow seems too thick for this kind of music - almost too powerful, but he is nonetheless the one, dragging this disc up into the decency layer. The music is heard before (the riff on "On The Road" reminds me a bit too much of Megadeth's "Symphony Of Destruction" and "Loved Died" is a bit too close to Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity, without even coming close to the original). All in all, I do like this album, but it will not go into history as a big classic - the songs simply need their own depth and special life. Even so, check out this band if you are a Soundgarden fan.
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Lars
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ORDER OF THE EBON HAND
"XV: The Devil" (Season Of Mist - provided by VME) - 1˝ out of 5 points - |
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Did Greece ever deliver just one really good black metal band? Hmm - I can't remember anything above standard coming out from the Mediterranean country in this genre, with the exception of Rotting Christ, which hardly can be called black metal any longer. Order Of The Ebon Hand ain't gonna change that as far as I'm concerned. Mediocre black metal, closer to the style of Norwegian cult acts; Limbonic Art - in terms of the avantgardistic synthesiser and saxophone (!!!) approach, Emperor - the big atmosphere, Mayhem - the classic old school sound and early Dimmu Borgir. It's just nowhere close to being as good as any of the aforementioned bands. OOTEH is another boring Greek black metal band, and one I could perfectly live without.
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Claus
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ORIGIN BLOOD
"Mr. Jakker Daw" (RAWH Production - provided by Rawh) - 4 out of 5 points - |
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First of all I can't say how much I hate Swedish musicians for being so f***ing talented. Origin Blood is a new interesting consolidation of talented musicians, who plays in the vein of modern melodic Swedish Death, combined with elements of late eighties Trash, this mixture is quite interesting as well is the music. I have never heard of the band, but they sure as hell knocked me down the chair. As an example the opening tune "Godsize" just hits you directly in the balls, with the mixture of rough and clean vocals all blended together with the raw sound of the band. I could easily see this band take over the scene of Soilwork and In Flames if they continue their remarkable good song writing. The only thing keeping me from giving this album a full grader is their tendency to mix in Nu-Metal, come on you guys no need for that! But definitely a damn good job from this Swedish band, keep up the good work, and I look forward to hearing your next album.
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Benjamin
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ORPHANED LAND "Mabool" (Century Media - provided by Target Distribution) - 5 out of 5 points - |
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Not only is this a sure "album of the year" candidate for me, but it's also the best album I've heard in many years. I can't praise this disc enough. Israeli band, Orphaned Land, have spent 8 years on creating this disc, and the wait has been worthwhile. "Mabool" is simply put heads and shoulders above anything else in the metal genre right now. From aggressive black and death metal, to laid-back piano parts, through progressive and technical metal to Middle Eastern folklore - this album has got it all. And to top it off, it's a brilliantly written lyrical concept, about what would happen if the different religions of the world tried to unite in peace and harmony, and how the world would have to go under in order to resurrect new and clean. This is so well-described in not only the lyrics, but also through the music, that changes mood with each new twist the story undergoes, with the use of different vocal styles (from clean vocals, hysteric black metal vocals, growling death vocals to soft female vocals) and even in the use of different languages, such as English, Hebrew, Arabis, Yemen, Latin and some strange language the band invented themselves. I could go on and on about the disc - explaining how each song brings a new feeling to the listener, how each musical part is so thought-out and well executed that it defies description, but in fact, there really is nothing else to say, other than this disc has got to be a permanent resident in all a self-respecting metal fans collection. Music just doesn't get any better than this!
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Claus
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O.S.I.
"Free" (Inside Out / SPV - provided by Target) - 3 out of 5 points - |
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As usual when Mike Portnoy is involved in something you have to ask yourself the question if he couldn't have used the skills to provide us with a new Dream Theater album every year instead of this. I have a hard time reviewing all these side project things as they are simply not as good as DT. OSI is well played, has strong melodies and is interesting music in general. Well, Mike didn't create the music. It is the brain child of Jim Matheos and Kevin Moore, and the 4th person to play on the album is Joey Vera. The biggest problem here is that as good a keyboarder Kevin Moore was in DT, as horrible a singer he is in OSI, and that takes away a lot of the wish to listen more to this disc. I guess you need to check it out if you are a fan of Fates Warning and DT as it is of course pretty good music within the prog-rock genre (not exactly metal), but I wouldn't recommend it for the sake of the world.
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Lars
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O.S.I. (office of strategic influence) "Office of Strategic Influence" (Inside Out / SPV - Provided by Nordic Metal) - 1˝ out of 5 points - |
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Okay, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this shit? I am to review an album consisting of 10 tracks and I get a promo with three songs!! How the hell can I give my objective opinion and provide you with a satisfying and adequate review of an album? It can't be done! However this project, featuring guitarist Jim Matheos, drummer Mike Portnoy and keyboardist Kevin Moore has got to have some kind of quality. You just don't get that feeling on the three songs on the promo. The first song, "The New Math" starts off with kick ass Dream Theater style progressive metal and raises the expectations for the rest of the album, but you get disappointed. The two other songs on the promo, "OSI" and "Hello Helicopter" really suck. The bore me and give me no musical challenge at all. They are just two other progressive metal/rock songs that will disappear in the masses.
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Martin J
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O.S.I. "Office Of Stategic Influence" (Inside Out - provided by Nordic Metal) - 2 out of 5 points - |
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Now, 1˝ months later, I get the same promo with O.S.I. again, and this time, all 10 tracks are included. I would really love to say that getting to hear the rest of the songs would change my view of the musical work on this album, but unfortunately it didn't.....that much, anyway. The rest of the tracks bore me too, and unless you are the keyboardist (and maybe also the drummer), you would get bored playing this kind of progressive music. The music is too much characterized by a too dominating keyboard (not the lead/solo kind of stuff, but more strange sounding underlying chords), studio sound effects and too little guitars, and that ruins the music and melodies that are so essential for making a good progressive rock/metal album. Still, after having been listening to all 10 songs, I raise the rating points from 1 1/2 to 2 out of 5 points. But in the future, I sure hope that I won't get any more of these 3-song-promo's 'cause you really can't judge and entire album by 3-4 songs (although it didn't make much difference in this case, but that was just a coincidence!)
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Martin J
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