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Opeth: Watershed Review
Watershed is the ninth album by Swedish progressive death metal band Opeth. Being only exposed to one Opeth album before, Still Life, I thought this album started off a bit soft. By soft, I don’t mean bad. The first track on Watershed is ‘Coil’. It is an acoustic song with two clear vocals. It’s a good track but I felt that it just didn’t have the Boom factor and the build-up suspense needed for an opening track like ‘The Moor.’
The singles on this album are ‘Porcelain Heart’ and ‘The Lotus Eater’. ‘Porcelain Heart’ sounds a lot like old Opeth stuff to me; lots of Tool-like melodies, lots of repeating riffs, not so much randomness. ‘The Lotus Eater’ offers much delight to my ears. It starts off as a quiet hum which suddenly shifts to a death metal song. The song also proceed to drift to Floyd ish solos and 70s funk jam. In fact, the song never stayed the same for more than a minute. Another song I like is ‘Burden’. It’s got clear singing vocals throughout the whole song and sounds really Lord of the Rings ish. Anyways, have a listen for youselves:
A New Metallica Album?
Metallica remains one of the most influential metal band of today. Being pioneers to the thrash metal genre more than 20 years ago, Metallica is still going with plans of releasing their ninth studio album later this year.
If you’re a Metallica fan, you probably know all about their downfall with the release of “Metallica” (AKA The Black Album). “Metallica” is the band’s best-selling album to date, with 14 million copies sold in the US and 22 million copies worldwide. It is number one on the 1991 UK Album Chart and Billboard 200 and features some of Metallica’s more popular tracks such as “Enter Sandman”, “The Unforgiven” ,”Nothing Else Matters” and “Wherever I May Roam”. With all this success, you’re probably wondering why some Metallica fans would turn away.
“Metallica” was the fifth Metallica album and the first to be produced by Bob Rock. Bob Rock, who has also worked with Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, and Our Lady Peace, just to name a few, lead the band in a new direction by reducing the overall complexity and speed of the music. The result was a more radio-friendly, commercially accessible Metallica.
Without the fast staccato riffs during verses and throaty vocals of the first four albums, older fans quickly turned away, fearing their band has become a sell-out. As Metallica continues to get softer and mainstream with the release of 5 more albums with Bob Rock, more and more fans left them for the more aggressive thrash metal bands such as Slayer, Anthrax and ex-Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine’s Megadeth. To this day, many old-Metallica fans believe there is no hope left for the band.
Metallica’s ninth studio album is expected to be released in September. It will be the first to be produced by Rick Rubin. Hopefully, it’ll be a turn for the better as it has been referred to as the “missing link” between 1988’s “…And Justice for All” and 1991’s “Metallica”.
Anyways, here are some songs off my favorite Metallica album, “Ride The Lightening”.
Dethklok: Dethtour 2008 with Chimaira and Soilent Green
Dethklok is a virtual death metal band on the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse. The show basically follows the part-American/part-Scandinavian band around as they go on tours, endorse products, perform charitable acts to avoid paying taxes and other related businesses in the music industry.
Their ability to command worldwide attention and effortlessly persuade masses of people usually lead to disasters, severe weather phenomena, paranormal anomalies, and injuries and fatalities to pretty much the whole crowd. Despite this, die hard fans are willing to sign “pain waivers” at the entrance, releasing the band from legal liability in case they are killed or crippled.
Dethklok had their first and only album, The Dethalbum, out late last year. It debuted at #21 on the Billboard 200 chart making it the highest chart positioned death metal album to date, according to StylusMagazine.com. The vocals on a lot of these tracks are all growls, some more clear than others. Some lyrics are well written while others are just the song name repeated over and over again. Overall they’re pretty funny and I don’t think they’re meant to be taken seriously. The guitar work, however, is simply amazing and I think that’s what made Dethklok a real band rather than just being a part of a cartoon show. If you’re a Guitar Hero fan or played Guitar Hero II, you have probably heard “Thunderhorse” before.
Dethklok will be touring with Chimaira and Soilent Green. I have heard of neither of these bands but here’s the tour schedule:
6/2/08 Roseland Theatre Portland, OR
6/3/08 Showbox SODO Seattle, WA
6/5/08 The Fillmore San Francisco, CA
6/6/08 Wiltern Theatre Los Angeles, CA
6/7/08 House of Blues – Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV
6/8/08 House of Blues – San Diego San Diego, CA
6/10/08 Marquee Theatre Tempe, AZ
6/11/08 Sunshine Theater Albuquerque, NM
6/12/08 Gothic Theatre Englewood, CO
6/14/08 First Avenue Minneapolis, MN
6/15/08 Liberty Hall Lawrence, KS
6/16/08 House of Blues – Chicago Chicago, IL
6/17/08 Clutch Cargos Pontiac, MI
6/19/08 House of Blues – Cleveland Cleveland, OH
6/20/08 Kool Haus Toronto, ONT
6/21/08 MTL Festival Montreal, QC
6/22/08 Town Ballroom Buffalo, NY
6/24/08 The Palladium Worcester, MA
6/25/08 Nokia Theater Times Square New York, NY
6/26/08 Ram’s Head Live Baltimore, MD
6/27/08 Theater of Living Arts Philadelphia, PA
6/29/08 House of Blues – South Carolina N. Myrtle Beach, SC
6/30/08 Hard Rock Live Orlando, FL
7/1/08 Jannus Landing St. Petersburg, FL
7/2/08 Tabernacle Atlanta, GA
7/4/08 Meridian Houston, TX
7/5/08 House of Blues – Texas Dallas, TX
7/6/08 La Zona Rosa Austin, TX
If you’re wondering how they will be performing on stage, Dethklok will be set up Gorillaz-style with the actual musicians, Brendon Small (creator) and his ensemble, playing at the side, according to UltimateGuitar.com
Get the CD at: Amazon
Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV Review
After listening to all 36 songs on NIN’s Ghosts I-IV, I would pigeonhole this album along with all NIN remix albums into an “experimental” category rather than include it in the NIN discography. If you bought this album expecting good new NIN materials, you’ll be very disappointed.
Ghosts I-IV consists of 36 instrumental tracks. Most of the songs aren’t very instrumental and there’s a lot of bass and static and distortion sounds. All the tracks on this album sounds basically like old NIN classics without the vocal, guitars, or energy. This is kind of disappointing because they did make the theme for Fight Club and it was so good.
There are some tracks that are quite nice and relaxing to listen to but the way they’re mixed together just sort of made everything a mess and nothing is very memorable. After the first couple of songs, everything actually start to sound kind of similar. I can group every track on this album into two categories: “hurt”-sounding and “closer”-sounding.
All in all, It would make a nice soundtrack to life and is something I would listen to while doing homework or working or maybe even sleeping if I take all the distortion noise tracks out but it’s nothing to rock out to.
Download Ghosts I here.
Buy the album at: Amazon
The 2008 Gigantour Experience
As many of you know by now, probably from me blabbering on and on about it over the past couple of posts, that the event happened last Wednesday at Arrow Hall in Toronto and I would like to share with you my unique Gigantour experience. First of all, the venue was like a football field sized aircraft hanger. It was so big and dark that I lost my friend Roman as soon as we got there and I never found two buddies that I was suppose to meet there. The place is said to have a capacity of over 8,000 and frankly I’m really glad that the show didn’t get sold-out (I’ll explain why later).
Roman and I arrived at the show two hours late just in time for Children of Bodom to start. I made my way into the pit and slowly pushed my way into the front. I was at front and center for the rest of Children of Bodom and the first half of In Flames. If you ever played rugby before or know rugby terminology, the whole crowd at the front of the concert was in a continuous ruck. There were people pushing you in every direction and I was getting the living hell squeezed out of me. While there, I got elbowed in the eye, was disconnected from my shoe three times, and got kicked in the head several times by crowd surfers.
By the time In Flames came on, I was so tired and thirsty from all the pushing and shoving (yes there were pushing and shoving during the SET-UP!) that I decided it was best if I went to get a drink and take a break so I can come back for Megadeth all refreshed. Little did I know that the crowd at the front was so dense that the only way out was to crowd surf to the front where you can walk around to the back. For a good 10 minutes, I was stuck at the front, not being able to breath or move until the mosh behind us slowly engulfed some of the crowds at the front.
After In Flames had their gig, a lot of the crowd left (most of whom were 13 year-olds) and I was able to get back in front for Megadeth. Once they began playing though, the crowd became quite dense again and there were mosh pits forming and conjoining everywhere. Megadeth put on a really good show and overall, the concert was mind-blowing. I was able to find Roman at the end of the show, only to learn that he lost his glasses but found someone else’s which were all bent and scratched. While walking back through the parking lot, we learned that some guys got the gas siphoned out of their car and that two people got carried out in stretchers. LOL.
