Vyrion

I knew it was a bad idea posting my best-of list before the actual end of the year. There was bound to be something crop up that made me think I should have waited. And this time, that something is Vyrion, with their self-titled debut. I discovered these Aussie progressive black metallers via a review on Angry Metal Guy, and something about them piqued my interest. The wonderful symmetrical logo was what made me pause to read the review, and the promise of progressive black metal with death and doom elements made me go listen.

The sound is truly a strange conglomeration. It's most definitely progressive black metal, but the vocals are a varied mix of black metal screams and hoarse whispers, death metal growls and grunts, and a good amount of clean singing. Quite often within the same song. The music, too, does similar twists and turns, from a driving, brutal blackened prog onslaught to more intricate, even melodic, death riffs. It's like the evil lovechild of Agalloch, Insomnium and Satyricon, which could turn out to be something of a random mish-mash if they weren't careful.

Fortunately it seems that have been careful, because it actually works really well. The songs are all cohesive, unique and distinct. After a brief tinkly-tonkly intro, the first track, Ever Rising Platform, sets your expectations of what this album is about, deftly switching between styles with some great riffs. It gets better as the album progresses, with Mortal Frame getting heavier and heavier, and The Decider being, for me, where it really gets going. Such is the nature of the beast, though, that while it has the heaviest opening riff, it also has a section where it turns to pure prog, with some great clean guitar work before the main riff bursts back in with matching screams.

The album continues apace with Winter Vector, featuring a rather minimalist main riff that turns into high-speed drum work before suddenly turning very soft and creepy in the middle, then bursting back into melodic black metal at the end. Disengage is just a bit strange, chugging number with some almost thrash-like riffs thrown in for good measure and then, suddenly, a soft-rock, clean vocal chorus. Most peculiar, but strike me down if it doesn't work brilliantly.

The thrash is all gone by the time Rendering The Lifeless starts up, and instead a slow, doomy riff takes over. The riffs are all melodic death metal, while the clean and screamed vocals switch and overlay each other in complicated and sometimes mind-bending ways. The Silence starts slow but speeds up significantly and turns into perhaps the most traditional black metal track on the album, despite being heavy with a definitely doom metal bass riff. Of course, this doesn't last and by the end of the track there is a 70s styled prog riff underpinning overlaid death growls and black metal screams.

Penultimate track The Decision brings blastbeats into the mix, more duelling growls and screams and a heavy, driving riff that propels the song into a crazy mix of slow, sombre riffs, high speed death metal and slow, contemplative blackened prog. The album concludes with Sole Remainder, a track that turns everything that went before on its head. Starting with a slow guitar melody and clean vocals reminiscent of Damnation era Opeth, it switches to blackened thrash and back again effortlessly and to a creepy and somewhat unsettling effect.

If the feeling you get from reading this description is that this album is an incoherent jumble of styles, you couldn't be more wrong. The switches between the various styles employed is not abrupt, nor are they at odds with each other. Instead, every change of style fits the song, and when two or more are employed, they complement rather than hideously contrast each other. It is at the same time both heavy and hard-hitting, and soft and melodic. It is a beautiful chimera incorporating the best of many worlds. If you like melodic death, black, blackened folk or progressive metal, there's something for you here. If, like me, you like all of the above, then this is a masterpiece.

This album is available via the band's bandcamp page on a pay-what-you-want basis for downloads, or as a physical CD for $10AUD, which is about £6.42 by my reckoning. It's also available to stream for free. So really, there's absolutely no excuse not to give it a listen and, if you like it, support an up-and-coming band who I hope to hear a lot more from.

Runners up

With so much top quality music in 2011, it was impossible to put everyone in the top 11. Here are a few honourable mentions who nearly made the cut, but didn't quite get there.

Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction

It pains me not to put this in the top 11, but the fact is that I don't play it as often as those in that did make the cut. It's a masterpiece, no doubt, and completely insane, but it's more an occasional pleasure than a frequent play.

The Man-Eating Tree - Harvest

This one missed out purely due to unfamiliarity. It didn't immediately grab me like Imaginaerum did, so without time to properly digest, I couldn't justify including it. It is really good, though.

Chaos Divine - The Human Connection

This one came out at the same time as Wolverine's Communication Lost, and out of the two, the latter got most plays. Like Harvest, this one took a couple of spins to get into, but once I did, it was well worth it.

Fornost Arnor - The Death Of A Rose

This is the album that I think should have been the successor to Opeth's Watershed. It's melodic, it's prog, it's death, it's brilliant. It just didn't make the cut because I don't think to play it as often as those that are on the list.

Within Temptation - The Unforgiving

This album took a long time to get into. It's entirely too pop-oriented for my usual taste, and one of the main singles, Sinead, appears to be a dance track. But I've seen it played live and it was better than I expected, so it goes in the runners up instead of the disappointments pile.

Amorphis - The Beginning Of Times

When I first got this album I raved about its brilliance, but since then the lustre has faded and, on reflection, it's not quite as good as Skyforger. Still a good listen every now and then, though.

Arch Enemy - Khaos Legions

In my mid-year review I marked this album as a disappointment because it was just like every other Arch Enemy album. It's since grown on me somewhat, and despite it not being the great leap forward many hoped for, it's still a solid album.

Kabát - Banditi di Praga

I picked this album up for a laugh on a trip to Prague earlier in the year, and it turned out to be a pretty decent album. I'd love to be able to sing along to the catchy choruses, but my Czech just isn't up to scratch. Otherwise, it's a worthy contender that falls short merely due to the generally high quality of other music that came out this year.

I usually include a list of disappointments, but this year there is only one that needs to be spoken of. And spoken of it is, far and wide, to much grumbling and bemoaning and general frustration. It should have been magnificent.

Opeth - Heritage

I tried to like it. Really, I did. I tried to disregard the arguments about wether it should have had growled vocals, or that it didn't sound like Opeth, or whatever, and tried to listen to it with no expectations. I even went and listened to it played live.

But that sad truth is that it's just boring. It's just really dull and tedious. And Mr Åkerfeldt's attitude toward people who don't like it really puts me off him, and that doesn't help with my perception of his music. Oh well, I tried.

Doozr's Top 11 of 2011

Well, what a year 2011 has been. In most respects it has been a complete wreck. So many horrible, miserable things have happened that it's been hard to be positive. But on the other hand, it's been an absolutely kick-ass year for music. When I sat down to write my list of the the best albums of the year I started with a shortlist of 21, and that's just the ones I've actually bought! There are still several releases out there that I hear great things about, but haven't managed to hear for one reason or another.

After much whittling I have pruned and shaved my extension list of musical awesomeness into the 11 best of the year, in my humble opinion. I normally do a top 10, but by the end of it I figured that 2011 deserved an extra one. And so, without further ado, and in no particular order, here is the list!

Moonsorrow - Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa

Starting off the list is an album all about the end of mankind. A nicely fitting start for this year. This album can justifiably be called epic, with its 14 minute tracks and loud, heavy orchestrations. It's really quite stunning.

Before The Dawn - Deathstar Rising

Another from Finland, Before The Dawn's latest album has spent a lot of time on my playlist. It's catchy, it's heavy and it has some great riffs. Not a great advancement from the band's previous albums, but it doesn't have to be.

Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

After a tumultuous time between albums, Sylosis came out with this amazing piece of death/thrash that is monumental in scope and sound. At over 70 minutes long, and shifting styles between progressive and thrash metal, it's an impressive accomplishment.

Wolverine - Communication Lost

Wolverine have always been good at writing emotionally charged music, and this album represents a culmination of that talent. It's progressive and beautiful, but also heavy in sound and in mood.

Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

I first heard of Primordial via an advert in Terrorizer, even though they've been around for years. I was impressed by A.A.Nemtheanga's coat. I then saw them at Bloodstock, and ended up buying this album. It did not disappoint. I'm not sure how to describe the sound except as a mix between Irish folk and black metal that works incredibly well.

Ghost Brigade - Until Fear No Longer Defines Us

More from Finland in the form of Ghost Brigade with their third album. Picking up where Isolation Songs left off, this is basically an album of excellent melodic death/doom metal. Great riffs, great lyrics, great album.

Mastodon - The Hunter

Splitting opinion by diverging from their previous conceptual ways, Mastodon put out this record to mixed reviews. I loved it. Sure, in some ways it plays like a collection of singles, but they're really good singles and guaranteed to have you singing along to the insanely catchy choruses.

Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt Two

I included Road Salt One in last year's best of year post, and so it's only fitting that I include Road Salt Two in this year's. Nothing vastly different here; the same basic formula, the same basic sounds, but that's ok. It's like finally hearing the second disk of a two part album.

Insomnium - One For Sorrow

A much anticipated release. What can be expected from a band like Insomnium except a brilliant album? And they certainly delivered. A great collection of songs with a common theme running throughout, and a worthy addition to an already amazing list of some of the finest melodic death in the world.

Anathema - Falling Deeper

Anathema are one of few bands who can completely reinvent themselves time and again, trying new genres, new sounds, new styles, and yet still be easily recognised. Falling Deeper is a collection of classical reworkings of their older doom metal tracks, and it works incredibly well. The first time I heard this album I just sat there, slack-jawed, and the only works I could muster by the end of it were "that was awesome."

Nightwish - Imaginaerum

Coming along just in time for me to write this list, Nightwish's latest opus is grandiose, beautiful and completely immersive. In some ways, it's all over the place, swinging wildly from heavy metal to slow jazz to, at one point, a bit of spaghetti western. It's not an easy album to describe in one paragraph, but it is a spectacular piece of musical theatre.

Nightwish - Imaginaerum

After a four year wait to see what Nightwish would do next, we finally have an answer in Imaginaerum. It's been hotly anticipated for several months now with speculation, interviews and snippets to keep everyone interested, and the other day a copy plopped onto my doormat. Having given it a few spins, I've been collecting my thoughts on what is a very complex piece. As much a cohesive whole as a collection of songs, it builds nicely on 2007's Dark Passion Play, carrying across a similar feel while being entirely new and, in many cases, very unexpected.

The whole album is built around the concept of a composer's thoughts on his deathbed, marking a lifetime of experience, imagination and pure fantasy. It has been produced alongside a film of the same name, sharing similar concepts and storyline, and so makes the album's "film score" style sound a more obvious fit. Always one for grandiose and theatrical works, Tuomas Holopainen has proven his songwriting ability.

The style of the album is, to be frank, all over the place. From traditionally "Nightwish style" tracks in Storytime and Last Ride Of The Day, to a spaghetti western style in Turn Loose The Mermaids and veering wildly into slow jazz for Slow, Love, Slow. But each song, while standing alone, fits well with the rest. Such is the quality of the songwriting that each one has its own feel, its own emotional connection, and yet builds on the cohesive whole of the album's concept.

There are some truly touching moments along the journey. Slow, Love, Slow builds a gentle yet heavy emotional base that's dashed to pieces by a frankly disturbing turn in Scaretale, which is both terrifying and, in one particular section, is somewhat reminiscent of Devin Townsend's Deconstruction for total out-there weirdness. My personal favourite for sheer emotional weight has to be Turn Loose The Mermaids which, while lyrically simple, has a complex musical style and really shows off Annete's vocal talents.

Other highlights include Rest Calm which, despite the name, is closer to heavy doom metal than anything restful or calm. Arabesque conjours up images of Whoever Brings The Night with a distinctly Arabian Nights feel. The 14 minute epic Song Of Myself, including a 6 minute recital of a poem with some quite disturbing themes, finishes off the album except for the outro and title track which pulls together everything that's come before into a theme song for the album.

There has been a lot of expectation, speculation and discussion of this album prior to its launch, and it's defied every possible expectation. It is a magnificent work, cohesive, emotionally powerful and quite brilliant. Any doubts that Nightwish could better Dark Passion Play have been dashed. If this is the new direction of the new era of Nightwish, then long may it continue.

The Soporific Sound of Metal

Like many people I am an occasional insomniac, and I frequently use music to aid my sleep. I usually use something tranquil to help me on my way to the land of nod. Anathema, Mostly Autumn and Tides From Nebula are frequently on my sleep time playlist. But sometimes I'm just not in the mood for softer music and I need something a little heavier.

Here is a list of five of my favourite albums for the restless metalhead that, at first glance, might seem completely unsuited to the task of helping drift off to sleep.

Wolverine - Communication lost

First up is Wolverine with their latest album, Communication Lost. Much of this album is melodic, and many of the tracks have their gentle moments, but on the whole the strong, hard riffs make it seem unlikely to be sleep inducing. Played loud enough, and heard through the muted ears of tiredness, it's actually very calming.

Example: Wolverine - Embrace

Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit

While listening to album opener They Escaped The Weight Of Darkness, you would be forgiven for thinking that this album is akin to a relaxation tape, full of the sounds of nature and a soft, mournful cello. You think that until the beginning of Into The Painted Grey, at which point your ears are pummelled into your head with some cracking drum work. But even then heavy rhythm has a wonderful soporific effect that gets the head nodding.

Example: Black Lake Nidstang

Moonsorrow - Varjoina kuljemme kuolleiden maassa

Like Agalloch, the power behind this album is the heavy, repetitive rhythm. With every track topping the 10 minute mark, its effect is somewhat relentless. The frequent breaks to the sound of a man walking through the ruins of the apocalypse are also particularly effective in soothing the active mind. Even the blood-curdling scream at the end of Kuolleille isn't enough to wake me once the album has done its work.

Example: Moonsorrow - Huuto

Sylosis - Edge of the Earth

It may seem utterly ludicrous to include a thrash record in a list of albums that make you sleep, but it shares many of the same qualities as Marrow Of The Spirit and Varjoina kulhemme kuilleiden maassa. It is, again, relentless at 70 minutes long, and the interspersing of melodic, almost prog like riffs amongst the wall of sound make it ideal to drift off to.

Example: Sylosis - Empyreal

Martriden - Enter the Monolith

Following on from Moonsorrow and Sylosis, Martriden starts to make more sense as an album to sleep to. It's heavy, it has some crushing riffs, but it is also an impenetrable wall of sound that hammers your semi-conscious brain into submission.  The trick to this album is to play it loud enough that you are completely enclosed by the sound. This one is particularly good for if you're trying to sleep on a train, the sound working with the rattling of the train on the tracks producing a cocoon of metal to hide inside on those long journeys.

Example: Martriden - Heywood R. Floyd

The Great Exhibition

November 25th saw The Great Exhibition tour reach sunny Sheffield. Four excellent bands made for one excellent night. Eibon la Furies, Old Corpse Road, The Prophecy and of course Northern Oak played a quartet of stunning sets.

Eibon la Furies

Old Corpse Road

The Prophecy

Northern Oak

Musings on Metal

I've been going through a phase of deep introspection of late. This hasn't left much time for posting things on blogs, as you can probably tell by the rather sparse November we're having here on TME. There are loads of reasons, and one of them is because I have been taking stock of my life and where it's going. And of course, to do this I had to be listening to exactly the right music.

Music is a huge part of my life. It's part of my identity, my self-image, my medication and my drive. I carry an iPod with thousands of songs on it so I can ensure that I have the right music for any given moment, and I'm constantly expanding my collection.

Most of the music I have falls under one or more sub-genres of heavy metal. Metal is a genre that gets a lot of bad press, and most people don't understand it. It's variously described as "depressing", "miserable" and, occasionally, "devil music." People don't want to understand metal, because it's not as easily accessible as, say, the latest pop trash from some manufactured group of singers. But then, perhaps that's some of it's appeal.

Because music is such a large part of how I identify myself, it is important that it's something that I can connect to. I connect with music that stirs me emotionally, and that music has to have something to it that gives it weight. The shear breadth of the heavy metal genre means that there is something I can connect to no matter what mood I feel.

But let's backtrack a little, and discuss how I came to find metal in the first place. When I was growing up, I didn't listen to music. I wanted to, but I couldn't find anything that fit what I needed at the time. The ridiculous pop music most people were into left me cold, and I even shunned the alternative crowd, with their Nirvana and their Iron Maiden. I grew up without music.

Well, mostly. I did have one album to keep me sane; The Best Rock Album In The World ... Ever! A collection of classic heavy rock songs from the likes of Mötörhead, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Yes and Pink Floyd. I played that album until it fell apart, not having the luxury of an MP3 player play copies in order to keep my original pristine. It got me through my mid-teens. Unfortunately, that was the time everything fell apart. I was diagnosed as being clinically depressed, and everything took a back seat. I gave up on music for years. I listened to the odd bit of music here and there, but I owned no albums, and I had no discernible music taste. I was one of those people who said they like "everything", while meaning "nothing".

I found metal at around age 22. I listened to Lacuna Coil's Comalies and found something I could connect with. At about the same time Evanescence entered the charts with Bring Me To Life, and The Rasmus released In The Shadows. Something about it ignited a long-dormant spark in my mind. It was dark. It was depressing. I connected with it.

Over the next few years I expanded my musical horizons. I drifted away from gothic pop rock and more heavily into death metal via Dark Tranquillity, Opeth and Insomnium. My tastes got darker, heavier and, for me, more emotionally engaging. Now my tastes are wide ranging and cover death, black, progressive, gothic, symphonic, and even folk metal. Each has its own strengths, it's own emotional appeal.

So that brings us up to date, and back to the question; why metal? Everyone listens to music for their own reasons. Some people listen to it simply because they are told to, either by their peers or by the marketing departments of the record labels, but for me that is not enough. For me, music is more than entertainment; it's a state of mind. When I listen to music I like to get lost in it, feel it, experience it. Having decent liner notes with, at the very least, the lyrics to the songs is important to me. I like to spend time with new albums listening to them properly, reading the lyrics, learning the music, finding out how I engage with it.

For me, music is a release, a cleansing, a catharsis. No matter what my mood, no matter how my mind may have deviated from any level of sanity, the right music can bring me back on track. It can ground me, and make me feel like me again. If that means listening to something angry, brash and heavy, then so be it. If it means listening to something soft, melancholy and poignant, then that's what I play.

Being the kind of person I am, I feel a vast array of what are generally considered negative emotions. From anger and depression, to disquiet and melancholy, I can always find something in metal that I can connect with. People who don't understand my reasoning often tell me that I shouldn't listen to all this miserable music and listen to something happy instead. I can't. Overly happy music just gets me angry. I don't connect with it. My brain rebels against it. It feels fake, like the smiling mask I so often have to wear to make it through a day. It feels like giving in to the joyless expression of happiness I am forced to endure.

But metal is more than lyrical themes. It incorporates a wide variety of musical styles, from the intense, high speed thunder of thrash to the delicate, crushing riffs of melodic death. These, too, are important. Anyone who listens to and appreciates classical music can understand that the qualities of the music itself can be just as powerful as the lyrics and themes. Metal is largely based around four key elements; drums to provide the beat and the pace, guitar to provide the rhythm and riffs, keyboards to provide the melody and ambiance, and vitally it uses a wide variety of vocal styles to capture the mood and depth of the song.

Too often I hear metal described as "rarrr rarrr" music by those who prefer only clean, easily discernible lyrics, as if the lyrics are the only important part of the song. But one thing I have discovered as my tastes have expanded is that the style of singing can be just as important as the music and the lyrics. A deep, guttural growl can express anger and pain. A hoarse, whispered vocal can be unsettling and put the listener on edge. It can take the music away from being a song being sung, and turn it into the performance of something greater. A play of sounds and emotions that couldn't be expressed through lyrics alone.

When I first started listening to metal, I felt somewhat alone. I didn't know anyone who shared my musical tastes, or so I assumed. Most of my friends mocked the music I listened to, which of course made me cling on to it all the more. By mocking the music, they were mocking me, and I couldn't stand that. But over time I have discovered more and more people who like the same music that I like. They are almost invariably ... different. Many of them wear big, heavy New Rock boots, have long, lank hair or only where outfits composed only of black, but these are people who I can connect with. Many of them have their own issues, their own reasons for listening to the music they do, and many of them live a lifestyle completely separate from the mainstream.

Metal, to me, is about more than music. It's about more than self-identity. It's about providing a soundtrack and an emotional base for my life. It might sound overly grandiose, or generally precocious, or pretentious, but that's how I connect to the music I live my life by. Going to my first metal festival opened my eyes to how many other people share a similar story. Being able to spend a weekend once every year in a place where being completely true to myself is not only allowed, but actively encouraged, is a wonderful thing.

It's been 3 months since the last Bloodstock Open Air. I am still wearing the wristband. Why? Because it gives me a link to something good. A time and a place where I felt that it was completely okay to be me, warts and all, and where I could revel in my love of metal with 10,000 other people, all washed down with a nice cup of tea, and horns in the air.

One for the Christmas list

Who wouldn't one of these little guys gracing their desk, mantlepiece or, if you're feeling controversial, hand?

Available from Hevy Devy's very own UK web shop for a mere 15 squids.

Insomnium - One For Sorrow

You know it's a good year for metal when Insomnium release a new album. It's often said that the only people who don't like Insomnium are people who haven't heard Insomnium, and One For Sorrow doesn't seem set to change that any time soon.

Right from the off this is immediately recognisable as an Insomnium record, from the whispered, almost instrumental opening track to the heavy yet intricate melodies. Not wishing to rest on their laurels, while still maintaining their signature sound, there are some interesting additions.

The first, and most notable, variation is an interesting play on clean vocals in a death metal album. The clean vocals overlay the deep and resonating growls making for a menacing and certainly unsettling sound. This technique is used several times and always works well. The rest of the time the vocals are pure growl, as can be expected, nay, demanded from a band so firmly entrenched in the melodic death genre.

The other new thing is a purely instrumental track that seems to be the antithesis of Insomnium; Decoherence is so tranquil and gentle I have dozed off while listening to it, only to nearly jump out of my skin at the opening bars of Lay The Ghost To Rest.

The rest of the album is loosely based around One For Sorrow, a traditional rhyme steeped in superstition. The subject and lyrics of the rhyme vary from place to place, but it is always based around crows, magpies, jackdaws or blackbirds, the number of which tell the fortune of the beholder. The rhyme goes up to ten birds, and so there are ten tracks (well, eleven on the limited edition). Each one explores something new, although the link between the song and the matching line from the rhyme isn't always obvious.

It's almost impossible to be disappointed with this album. I'm sure some would have liked more progression, or at least more variety, but this album represents more a honing of a style than a departure from one. If you like Insomnium, you will like One For Sorrow. And if you don't, then you obviously haven't heard them yet.

Anathema - Falling Deeper

Some bands reinvent themselves. Some stay the same. Some produce the odd concept album or try something totally other once in a while. But surely the masters of reinvention have to be Anathema. With their latest foray into the wildly unexpected they have produced Falling Deeper; an orchestral, almost neo-classical, reworking of some of their older doom songs.

Ostensibly a follow-up to Hindsight, which saw rearrangements of various Anathema songs, Falling Deeper takes the whole concept to a far reaching conclusion. It may be a step too far for some. Most of the songs are unrecognisable from their heavy, guitar driven origins.

The whole project got started by Danny Cavanagh who was playing with piano arrangements, and who then was inspired to include a 26 piece orchestra. For lovers of modern classical pieces, film scores and related orchestral noodling, this album is sure to tick every box.

As a relatively recent convert to Anathema fandom (A Natural Disaster being the first album I heard) I was unaware of, or at least not entirely familiar with, many of the original tracks. I've since gone through a sort of Anathemic nostalgia, listening to the new and the old together. I can safely say that Falling Deeper is a work on its own, and not a remix or reissue of older material.

The music itself, then, is a very relaxing, emotionally charged experience. Crescendo follows lull follows crescendo as the music builds and falls for the relatively short 38 minute run time. While it's easy to zone out and experience it washing over you, the melodies that made the original tracks so great still draws you in, intertwined with the soaring strings and the soft, yet powerful vocals.

Of all the tracks reworked for this album, it's hard to pick particular highlights. Crestfallen and Sleep In Sanity start proceedings as they mean to go on. Everwake's dreamlike soundscape and beautiful vocal is a real pleasure, and Sunset Of Age completes the album with exhilarating, yet somewhat disquieting, aplomb.

It's been rumoured that Anathema is in the studio recording all new material for release early next year. If and when they tour the new material, I can't help but hope they bring the orchestra along so I can experience Falling Deeper in the best way to experience any Anathema track; live, up close and heart wrenchingly personal.

Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt Two

I wrote about Pain Of Salvations last album, Road Salt One, quite some time ago now. I talked about the raw emotion, the excellent songwriting, and the fantastic production. It's still one of my favourite albums. And now I there is a sequel, the unsurprisingly titled Road Salt Two.

This is the second half of the Road Salt concept, a pair of albums exploring life, emotion, and human interaction. In many ways, it's more of the same. I could wax lyrical about it in much the same way as Road Salt One because, in truth, it is very, very similar. It's almost a second disk to accompany the first. And this is no bad thing.

The same basic structure is used again, with the recurring theme of "the road" cropping up time and again. But the lyrical themes take a turn here. They are more mature, they are the end of the journey, whereas Road Salt One told of the beginning. The walker isn't walking the road any more. He's sitting, exhausted, and remembering everything that has gone before.

There is a peculiar quality to the production that makes the album feel a lot older than it is. Subtle use of distortion imbues in the listener a sense of nostalgia. The beautifully short, yet poignant, 1979 really pins that nostalgia down. Where Road Salt One was about struggling through life, Road Salt Two is about breaking point. About looking back at what is gone, and facing what has to come.

Some familiar aspects of Road Salt One come back for a second outing. The grizzled blues rock of the walker is back in Of Salt, and the cacophonous, deeply disturbing carnival sound of Wait, Darling, Wait returns in Break, Darling, Break. A suitably painful reworking of the familiar sound.

While the album should be taken as a whole, and all the tracks are superb, there are a number that stand out. The aforementioned 1979 is one, the somewhat disquieting Eleven, and To The Shoreline, which is Road Salt Two's answer to Sisters. The Deeper Cut, Through The Distance and Healing Now are also brilliant songs in their own right.

I'm sure some would be disappointed in the apparent lack of progress since Road Salt One. I'm not. Road Salt Two is exactly what I wanted it to be; a completion of Road Salt One. Not diverging too far to be a different concept, but not similar enough to be the same album all over again. This is the end of the road, and it has been both a pleasure and a heartache to walk it.

Mastodon - The Hunter

There has been a lot of buzz around The Hunter, the latest album from American sludge metal band Mastodon, from a variety of intriguingly different sources. The usual metal media has, of course, been posting the latest news and views, but it's also been heavily talked about in prog rock circles. It's been billed as the "other" prog album of the year, alongside Opeth's Heritage.

If The Hunter is prog, it's a very different kind of prog to Heritage indeed. The songs clock in between 2:36 for the wonderfully titled Blasteroid and 5:31 for The Sparrow. None of your usual 15 minute, multi-part prog noodling here.

In truth, while previous Mastodon albums have been conceptual masterpieces, painting a huge canvas across the whole album, The Hunter feels more like a collection of singles. And yet, at the same time, it doesn't. While the songs are distinct and stand alone, they also work together. There is a definite common theme of "wood" running through the album, from the obvious forestry in Curl of the Burl to the wooden figurehead on the cover.

The songs veer wildly from style to style, from the psychedelic twiddling of Stargasm, the heavy metal of Spectrelight, the straight up pop/rock of Curl of the Burl and the melodic, emotional strains of the title track. The sound is dense and consuming, with great drum work underpinning the guitar riffs and multitude of vocal styles.

The vocals have caused some controversy in the press for the use of autotune, amongst other effects. To be honest, if I hadn't been told, I wouldn't have known, so it's not like the obnoxious roboto-vocals so popular in the pop world right now. The band all seem to have a crack at it, with vocal harmonies coming in to play.

Having bought the special edition version, there are some extra goodies. A full set of music videos that can be watched in track order to provide a great immersive experience, and a somewhat gimmicky "augmented reality" bit. With the use of a webcam, you can replace your head with the … um … creature from the album cover art. I haven't tried it yet.

There is a great variety on this album, and it's both easy to listen to as background, catchy enough to get your attention, as well as providing a wonderful experience if you want to get caught up in the music. I think the fact that in little over a week I have racked up 125 scrobbles says it all.

Nostalgia of an Opeth nature

After the last rather lacklustre post about Heritage, it got me hankering for when Opeth did really awesome songs with only clean vocals. Here is my favourite. Harvest, from Blackwater Park. Worlds apart, really.

Opeth - Heritage

There has been a not inconsiderable stir in the metal community over the latest Opeth record. After months of discussions, interviews and previews, Mikael Åkerfeldt's newest vision is with us and causing all manner of confusion. We all know by now that it's not metal, but what is it?

It's not an easy question to answer. Many records will draw the listener in, play them a story or an emotion, stir something inside them. Not so Heritage. It won't pull you in, it won't tell you how to feel about it. It's a very difficult record to listen to properly, because it requires significant effort on the part of the listener.

The first vocal track, The Devil's Orchard, has been around a while now. I didn't know what to make of it when it first appeared, and I still don't know now. It's a sort of prog/jazz fusion that doesn't really sound like anything in particular.

The rest of the album contains a varied mix of material. The heavier prog rock style of Slither is countered by the peaceful and mostly instrumental Nepenthe. Häxprogress has some interesting riffs if you listen hard enough for them, but is otherwise unremarkable.

I'm not sure if the difficulties I have found with this record are due to a fundamental flaw in the record itself, or my own mental disconnect between what's going into my ears and what I know is Opeth. I can't help but think that if this was Anathema, undisputed (in my mind, anyway) kings of atmospheric rock, they would have made a far more immersive production out of the same basic musical style.

As it stands, Heritage has turned out not to be a particularly engaging experience. I almost hesitate to use the phrase "easy listening", not because some of the softer riffs and repeated rythmn aren't deserving of it, but because it's not an easy listen. I've read a couple of reviews before writing my own, and one phrase that seems to crop up is that the album "makes people think." I don't feel that it really does. The lyrics are not particularly groundbreaking. They're just presented in a jerky, inconsistent way as the songs lurch from riff to disjointed riff. It is not the level of songwriting I have come to expect from the band, and other albums I have bought recently (more on those in future posts) outshine Heritage in every respect.

Sometimes when I first hear a record, especially one that is designed to subvert expectations, I find that it doesn't "click." A few months down the line, I may give it another chance and be pleasantly surprised at how well it's aged. I don't know if that will be the case with Heritage, or if I will just get my prog kicks from elsewhere and leave the crushing-yet-beautiful prog death metal to the likes of Fornost Arnor, whose latest album, Death Of A Rose, is a worthy successor to Opeth's metal history.