Tag Archives: Hansel Lopez

Periphery – Juggernaut: Alpha / Omega

Posted on by

'Juggernaut: Alpha'

‘Juggernaut: Alpha’

If I’ve learned anything from the internet (aside from cat’s secretly ruling the world) it’s that Periphery is the worst thing to ever happen to metal.

Or it’s that Misha Mansoor arrived on earth with the sole purpose to teach us plebs what guitar playing should really sounds like.

Yeah, the internet is split like Democrats and Republicans when it comes to this Maryland collective.

Their ambitious latest undertaking, double album Juggernaut: Alpha and Juggernaut: Omega (Sumerian) will only strengthen that electronic divide. With Alpha and Omega running 42:55 and 40:36, respectively, ambitious is the best way to describe the much discussed follow up to 2012s Periphery II.

Everyone knows double albums are a tricky proposition. Particularly for metal or rock bands. Us metal fans are a fickle bunch. We love to denounce when a band drastically alters their approach (cough, In Flames) and piss and moan when they decide to stay the course (i.e. Cannibal Corpse’s discography). So the challenge here is twofold: how do you please the audience while keeping their attention for the span of discs worth of material? I grew up in the 90s. I remember Use Your Illusion I and II. Those are not good memories.

Fortunately for the peripherals, Periphery have, for the most part succeeded at retaining listener’s attention all while making bold, refreshing sounds.

'Juggernaut - Omega'

‘Juggernaut – Omega’

Both Alpha and Omega feature their heaviest music as well as some of the most melodic. If there was any common sense (and taste) left in commercial rock radio, tracks like ‘Priestess’ and ‘Heavy Heart’ would have found a home on their airwaves. With that said, be prepared to get your ass handed to you by the seven string attack Mansoor, Mark Holcomb and Jake Bowen bring on ‘22 Faces’ and ‘Graveless.’ There’s also the opportunity in track ‘Omega’ for Periphery really to get their prog going. It passes the 11 minute mark without sounding like a second rate Meshuggah or Dream Theater. Most of their peers couldn’t pull that stunt, let alone a double album.

From what I gather, the reason Juggernaut getting the dicey double album format is its narrative. Alpha chronicles the birth and rise of our protagonist, while Omega details the trials and tribulations of said character. And quite frankly, I didn’t follow the narrative. While I can certainly appreciate them taking the creative chance, it feels a bit unnecessary. By eliminating the narrative and trimming some of the instrumental interludes on the first half, it is very possible to have all the great music on one disc as opposed to two. But that’s really more of a nitpick.

A few years back I felt Periphery seemed on track to become the new Killswitch Engage. That analogy still fits. Much like Killswitch shed itself of the metalcore stigma, Periphery, through strong songwriting and not playing it safe, have successfully shaken any association with djent. Now that they can’t be pigeonholed to djent or the “Sumerian sound” it leaves Periphery open to be viewed for what they truly are, a brilliant metal band.

Who cares what the internet says.

periphery

9/10

Periphery on Facebook

HANSEL LOPEZ


Under the Surface – Underground Bands Spotlight

Posted on by

This month’s Under the Surface has us travelling from our friends in the great north, Canada to the comfortable confines of Boston all the way down to North Carolina and finally making our last stop across the world in New Zealand. This of course is all in the pursuit of the latest and greatest in unsigned or undiscovered metal music.

hirsute

We begin with one man wrecking crew Justin Chorley and his latest musical endeavor, Hirsute. Still Waiting is melodic doom metal of the highest order. It’s a bit baffling that there can be an act of this caliber that hasn’t already been nabbed by Relapse or Southern Lord. And this isn’t just fanboy hyperbole. Chorley singlehandedly may have brewed up the depressing lovechild of Opeth and Paradise Lost. Not unlike Deafheaven’s Sunbather, the key to Still Waiting is how it casts light and shade. In order to really appreciate the storm and soul-crushing riffs you need the quiet, introspective moments of songs like ‘Sang the Bird from its Cage’ and the title-track. But don’t take my word for it. Find Hirsute on bandcamp and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

9/10

Hirsute on Bandcamp

pyramids on mars

From one man’s metallic vision we move to another’s in Pyramids on Mars. The instrumental brainchild of Hamilton Ontario’s Kevin Estrella, Pyramids on Mars focuses more on melodies and very clean/technical guitar passages. With no singing and drums only there to keep time, Estrella’s shredding is truly the marquee event here. When he shreds, he shreds. It’s the stuff that the John Petrucci hideous t-shirt crowd loves as evidenced on ‘Descending Saturn.’ But when we don’t have an abundance of fancy fret work and are only left with the thin sounding programmed drums and synths that’s when Pyramids on Mars starts to lose momentum. Come for Estrella’s axe skills, but he’s yet to find a reason for you to stay.

5/10

Pyramids on Mars on iTunes

chronologist demo

Following the more progressive metal route are Boston’s own, Chronologist. In the wake of Periphery and djent fever sweeping across all local markets it’s beyond gratifying and exciting to hear a new collective that isn’t just aping Meshuggah palm-muting and calling themselves “progressive” like every other band at the Palladium these days. It’s unclear if Chronologist will continue to move forward without a vocalist, but it’s working for them. Songs like ‘Bazooka’ and ‘San Juan’ have enough dynamics and intricate guitar work that it eliminates the need for singing. Going instrumental is something even more established prog-metal acts should consider (looking at you Dream Theater). To be around for barely over a year and have an instrumental Demo be better than most of your peer’s LPs is a strong start. Keep up the fine work, gentlemen.

8/10

Chronologist on Bandcamp

all hell album cover

All Hell’s The Devil’s Work is the kind of LP that sounds like it was released 30 years ago, conceived after many brews and bong rips. Down to the production and riffs, it’s an album that reeks of Venom and Hellhammer, yet it’s a power trio from Asheville, North Carolina. If you have a fine appreciation for early 80s metal particularly the darker side of the British Wave of Heavy Metal you can have some fun with The Devil’s Work. When it finds its pace it alternates between Show No Mercy and Orgasmatron. Which is awesome but when it teeters off it has a hard time figuring out if it’s an homage or if it’s just dated. Especially since today there are many young bands like Skeletonwitch and Toxic Holocaust who balance an old-school sound without sounding rehashed. Here for every rager like ‘The Reaper’s Touch’ you have to deal with a dud like ‘Firewalker.’ Dang shame that it’s inconsistent, but there’s enough thrash on The Devil’s Work to warrant still wearing your bullet belt.

7/10

All Hell on Bandcamp

son of man burn the witch

Lastly we have the new 7” Burn the Witch EP from Southern California’s enigmatic Son of Man. Since they refuse to play shows the only thing we can really determine based on their limited output is that they are angry and also have appear to have an affinity for metallic hardcore. Unlike All Hell, Son of Man is balancing some tried and tested genres (thrash, hardcore, doom) without sounding like you’ve heard it before. It hammers its point home quickly in similar fashion to Black Breath and leaves you wanting more. Actually it would have been nice if this was a proper LP with even more pummeling and properly timed breakdowns.

8/10

Son of Man on the web

HANSEL LOPEZ


Rage Nucléaire – Black Storm of Violence

Posted on by

Rage-Nucleaire-Black-Storm-of-Violence-_2B-Unrelenting-Fucking-Hatred-38748-2_3

This is a black metal album. I like black metal. It has the occasional death metal moment. Lord Worm is handling the vocals. Fredrik Widigs, current skinsman for Marduk, is laying down the blast beats. On paper this seems awesome. Like really fucking awesome. But yet why after a few listens today doesn’t it feel awesome all the way through?

For those uninitiated, Rage Nucléaire, is Lord Worm’s post-Cryptopsy vehicle for blasphemy and mayhem. And while I’ll always have a spot in my heart for the Cryptopsy days of old, it’s neat to see Lord Worm still active and applying his unique pipes to some other stylings.

Black Storm of Violence (Season of Mist) is the follow-up to Rage Nucléaire’s 2012 aptly-titled debut, Unrelenting Fucking Hatred. All the elements that made that debut so compelling are for the most part still here, including first and foremost Widigs wild drumming. Seriously, this guy can drive home a blast beat. Hence his barbaric displays like ‘Annihilation Frenzy’ and ‘A Sino-American Chainsaw War.’ Or he can slow it down like ‘Goddess of Filth’ or ‘The Deadfall Triptych,’ which also make room for almost melodic passages from guitarist Dark Rage and keyboardist Alvater.

Then Black Storm of Violence starts to lose me. Sounding more like black metal (corpse) paint by numbers than true kvlt. Even Lord Worm’s trademark shrieks and howls are marred by processing. It’s Anaal Nathrakh without the psychotic seventh gear. If anything, Rage Nucléaire could borrow some of the Anaal magic. Aim for shorter, even further needle-in-the-red intense songs.

While the music more often than not runs on the right track, the samples seem more afterthought than ambiance inducing. We are treated to a greatest hits of black metal clichés including classics such as marching soldiers, gunfire, wolves and Hellraiser. When the first line you hear is a sample from a Rob Zombie film, you can’t help but wonder if this feels less Transylvanian Hunger and more Damnation and a Day. Also, I think Charles Manson would really appreciate it if people would stop using his “If I started murdering people…” bit. It sounded cool when Integrity used it in 1995, but at this point even Manson must be sick of it.

This is band that has a great black metal album in them if they focus more on the quality of the songs as opposed to what appears to be truly “evil” or “kvlt.” Lord Worm has already been on a death metal classic, let’s hope he can do it again with black metal.

 

6/10

Rage Nucléaire

HANSEL LOPEZ


Black Crown Initiate – Wreckage of the Stars

Posted on by

BCI album cover

One of extreme metal’s most promising and hyped prospects, Reading Pennsylvania’s Black Crown Initiate, have finally unleashed their debut LP, The Wreckage of Stars (eOne). The hype here is real and well deserved following last year’s crushing self-released Song of the Crippled Bull EP, joining eOne’s mutant shark-tank of a metal roster and a guest spot on The Metal Alliance Tour.

So how does The Wreckage of Stars stack up to the debut EP?

It takes the chops and promise on display on the EP and gives it the CinemaScope treatment. Much like The Faceless’ Planetary Duality in 2008 the tracks build on their predecessors. The compositions are given a deeper low-end sound and are allowed to breathe and shift through various dynamics. Songs can go from sounding like its raining hammers on concrete to Devin Townsend or Opeth-like progressive melodies. My own slight knock with this approach is that on a song like the otherwise superb ‘Withering Waves’ they resort to the clean-sung chorus a few too many times. It sounds less dynamic and more formulaic.

Part of the fun for a death metal enthusiast like myself is with numbers like ‘To the Eye That Leads You’ and ‘The Malignant’ where it’s all about the groove and suffocating double bass drumming.

In conclusion, Black Crown Initiate serve as a reminder to death metal’s constant evolution and unwillingness to die. Everyday online I read the crying and moaning that death metal hasn’t been the same since the “good ole days” in Tampa Florida. And while Tampa in 1991 was an almost unreal musical environment, there’s still plenty of good today. We are fortunate enough to have young bands like Fallujah, Rivers of Nihil, Abiotic, Job For a Cowboy and now Black Crown Initiate who grew up listening to the Florida master class and are putting their own spin on the most extreme of genres. The future looks bright.

 

BCI band

9/10

Black Crown Initiate on Facebook

 

HANSEL LOPEZ


Suicide Silence – You Can’t Stop Me

Posted on by

 

Suicide Silence - You Cant' Stop Me (Ltd. Digipak-Cover)

In the event of a musician’s death the surviving members have a few options. You can do the Led Zeppelin and call it a career. Or you can turn the page and start fresh like New Order. And there’s always the AC DC method which is to keep plowing forward giving people what they’re familiar with.

Suicide Silence have chosen the AC DC path.

Three years since their last recording, The Black Crown (Century Media), and two since frontman Mitch Lucker’s untimely death, Suicide Silence have returned the appropriately titled You Can’t Stop Me (Nuclear Blast). While there was doubt on the prospect of new music, Suicide Silence took a year off and recruited Hernan “Eddie” Hermida to replace the late Lucker. While he was a magnetic stage performer, Lucker wasn’t the most accomplished growler, which is why Hermida’s entrance to the band should be a welcome one. If you ever got the chance to see Hermida’s former band, the commercially inferior/musically superior All Shall Perish you know he’s got chops and stage presence himself

 

While non-processed vocals and a strong live show is always good news, there are some bad news. The bad news being that they still sound like Suicide Silence. Like this could be the sequel to The Black Crown. It’s a sound that I’d hesitate to call death metal. After enough listens You Can’t Stop Me sounds something more akin to groove metal, metalcore or even nu-metal.

I’m not sure if it’s because of Lucker’s death, but Suicide Silence leave no doubts that this is an album from the folks who gave you ‘Disengage’ and ‘Wake Up.’ All earmarks are present, from the triggered drums, requisite breakdowns and simple song titles (‘Monster Within,’ ‘Warrior,’ ‘Inherit the Crown’). And to really make sure you understand it’s the same band you know and love (or love to hate), they’ve conveniently also included a re-recorded version of ‘Ending is the Beginning’ from their debut EP. Ironically ‘Ending is the Beginning’ may the best song on the album.

They say the more things change the more they stay the same. Suicide Silence believes that and for good reason. They’re on of the few metal acts today that consistently finds themselves debuting with the Billboard Top 100. It’s just disappointing because they had a fantastic opportunity here to reinvent themselves. But they seem to enjoy being the Toyota Camry of extreme metal. Selling well while being perfectly vanilla.

SuicideSilence2014d

 

5/10

Suicide Silence on Facebook

 

HANSEL LOPEZ

 


Emmure – Eternal Enemies

Posted on by

emmure album cover

I’m conflicted about Emmure’s latest release. Upon first inspection, it’s a 45 minute exercise in banality. However, there is a part of me that wishes to salute Frankie Palmeri and his cohorts on this latest endeavor. I salute them because in 2014 they are willing to write an album like Eternal Enemies (Victory). They have the courage to compose such an open love letter to the musical pariah that was nu-metal. 

While on tracks like ‘Rat King’ and ‘Nemesis’ Emmure find themselves rehashing the same ebb and flow of past and (quite frankly) tired jams like ‘Solar Flare Homicide’ and ‘Children of Cybertron’. Most of Eternal Enemies has Palmeri and Co. channeling their undying adoration of Limp Bizkit and Korn. By sitting through jams like ‘Most Hated;’ ‘Girls Don’t Like Boys, Girls Like 40s and Blunts’ and the DJ scratching masterpiece that is ‘E’ its abundantly clear that all Emmure want to do is party like its Ozzfest 98.

And if turntables and subpar playing don’t have you ransacking your closet to find your pair of JNCO jeans, then you haven’t heard Palmeri’s lyrical prowess. A gifted pupil of the (hed) p.e. school of lyrics, Palmeri proudly informs us that: “I’m the realest motherfucker in the game/I see you faggots living perfect lives” and “I’m gunna fuck your pretty face/ Try the cum, and tell me how does it taste?” While most will find his language disgusting, he’s no misogynist or homophobe. He merely pays tribute to heroes like Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst. Pioneers in channeling white suburban angst cloaked in foul language and incoherence. After all what in life could be more difficult than being heckled online or signed to Victory Records? Emmure may reside in Queens New York, but these gentlemen got their start in Connecticut. The struggle is not real.

I can see it now. Somewhere in the desserts of Barstow sit an aging Durst and Davis. In between hits of crank and everclear they’ll whisper to each other and smile. They’ll say we’re here to stay. We’ve somehow evaded total irrelevancy and once again have had a say in corrupting the young and impressionable.

 

 

2/10

 

HANSEL LOPEZ

 


Whitechapel – Our Endless War

Posted on by

Whitechapel album cover

A name often associated with the much maligned deathcore explosion that rocked the metal world in 2006-07, Whitechapel continues to march forward (and slowly distance themselves from the glut of mediocrity within the subgenre) with the release of their fifth studio album, Our Endless War (Metal Blade).

 

Much like their 2012 self-titled effort, Whitechapel once again chose to work with producer Mark Lewis and deliver another ten track offering focusing on groove with tinges of melody, guitar solos and actual hooks. And you can’t really knock on the band for going down that avenue. It’s an approach that’s worked well for the Tennessee collective thus far as its garnered them strong commercial success (with regards to deathcore they’re sales are only surpassed by artistically inferior acts like Suicide Silence, Bring me the Horizon, etc…). However this muscular, groove oriented style marks them as creatively stifled if compared to the likes of All Shall Perish or The Red Chord.

 

While the meat of the record is still in the down-tuned chug of songs like ‘The Saw is the Law’ and ‘Mono’ there are some pleasant surprises in the Whitechapel arsenal this go around. The album’s vaguely political title-track (and best number they’ve written in years), reminds the listener that Whitechapel hasn’t forgotten about the hardcore punk aspect of their musical DNA. This unexpected dynamic shift in sound got me wondering why it so took so long for deathcore bands to dabble in the hardcore portion of their genre.

To contrast the hardcore snarl, tracks like ‘Blacked Out’ and ‘Worship the Digital Age’ are blast-beat filled compositions that channel Whitechapel’s most death metal oriented release, the underrated and recently reissued The Somatic Defilement. Our Endless War is peppered with these gut-punching gems, but it’s never consistent enough.

 

My issue with Whitechapel is perfectly captured with this latest album. They’re perfectly content with being just good enough and showing the occasional glimpse at greatness. But like I stated before, if something is working then why change it? Whitechapel will continue to sell well and get solid tour offers off the strength of Our Endless War. I’ll readily admit that I’ll watch them live again and look forward to many of these new songs, but I’m still waiting for their truly great album that will completely shed the deathcore label.

 Whitechapel band 2

7.5/10

Whitechapel on Facebook

Hansel Lopez