Odium -- 'At The Bottom' [review]

Odium - At the Bottom
Year of the Sun Records (3/17/09)
Metal

Odium has taken the blueprint of melodic metal from Sweden’s In Flames and tempered the attack with a hint of Killswitch Engage to create a sort of Canadian leviathan. The result is At the Bottom, an album chock-full of ambition even if the band ultimately chooses emulation over innovation.

That’s not to say there isn’t a hell of a lot on this album to satiate metal-heads the world over. Every song is a brutal dose of metal, filled with melodic riffs with a little synth or keyboard popping up on the rare occasion.

Odium is at its best when the band is just tearing through songs, like the blistering "Population Zero" or album opener "Oblivion's Gates", where each song is just turgid with meaty riffs, thunderous double-bass and blast beats, and a nice mix of growling, demonic vocals with the melodic, clean reprieves. (The band does a nice job with this recipe on the slower-paced title-track, too.)

That’s pretty much the approach Odium takes with each song, sometimes going a little heavier (“Frailty” or the nearly seven-minute “Need to Exist”) or more melodic (“The Failure” or the syrupy album closer “The Abyss Stared Back”). In a rare misfire, the band seems to channel Chevelle on “Serenity’s End”, opting for almost completely clean vocals. At least tracks like “It Goes Cold” or “Lifting the Veil” have a built-in sense of urgency to them.

Canada is turning into a breeding ground for solid metal outfits (just look at label mates Cradle to Grave or Misguided Aggression); If Odium is able to break out and reach a wider audience, the band could really make a mark on the scene and probably grow a lot, too.

Black Label Society -- 'Skullage' CD/DVD [review]

Black Label Society - Skullage
Eagle Records (4/21/09)
Metal

Skullage is the much-warranted career retrospective for one of metal’s living guitar gods, Zakk Wylde. The set offers up a glimpse of 12 years of recording; from the once-obscure Pride and Glory days (Wylde’s first band which recorded its only album in 1994) all the way through to BLS’s 2006 release Shot to Hell, there’s a little bit of everything on here.

Presented in chronological order, the album is a compendium of riffs, metal anthems and melancholic bliss. It opens with Pride and Glory’s “Machine Gun Man” and immediately shifts gears into “Dead As Yesterday” (off Wylde’s solo offering Book of Shadows, which featured material much different from the usual BLS fair).

It’s a good set, to be sure, though it does seem to lean a little heavily on the later, more popular releases—three songs from The Blessed Hellride (“Doomsday Jesus”, “Stillborn” and “Won’t Find it Here”) and Mafia (“In This River”, “Fire it Up” and “Suicide Messiah”)—and only touches on the oft-overlooked 1919 Eternal (“Bleed for Me”) or the lesser-received Shot to Hell (“New Religion”). Skipped entirely is the acoustic Hangover Music, Vol. 6 and the BLS debut Sonic Brew. However, the acoustic set “Slightly Amped”, recorded back on the Blessed Hellride promotional tour, is on here, and it does feature a killer version of “Spoke in the Wheel” (off the aforementioned Sonic Brew) so... perhaps that was a two-birds-one-stone type of deal.

Skullage is also available with a DVD set, which features a bunch of live footage, a handful of music videos, the aforementioned “Slightly Amped” set, and a half-hour piece with Wylde working out, goofing off, jamming and talking about the inspiration for some of his songs. Of note is an insane version of "Spoke in the Wheel" (which looks like it was recorded on the Mafia tour), the "In This River" video and some fun footage of Wylde messing around with the late Dimebag Darrell (talking about the "In This River" video and inspiration during an interview).

The set, on the whole, is killer, and metal fans really can’t miss with Wylde, but die-hards will miss a couple of things. With what was presented on the accompanying DVD, it would have been easy to omit songs like “Fire it Up” or “Won’t Find it Here” to include stuff like “Battering Ram”, Wylde’s sick version of “America the Beautiful”, his insane cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “I Never Dreamed” or another track off of Book of Shadows for the CD side of things.

Nonetheless, Skullage is a must-have for BLS fans and metal-heads in general.

Misguided Aggression -- 'Hatchala' [review]

Misguided Aggression - Hatchala
Year of the Sun Records (3/17/09)
Metal

Misguided Aggression may just be the Great White North’s answer to Lamb of God. On Hatchala, the Ontario quintet serves up a slab of brutal, in-your-face, fist-pumping metal.

Eight tracks clocking in at just over 26 minutes might lead one to think that te band took a single-minded approach to the recording, offering up quick blasts of metal with little variation. Such is not the case. Instead, Misguided Aggression uses the chug-a-chug template and folds in elements of groove, clean vocal melodies, slight hints of hardcore (think Unearth) and prog-based breakdowns (earning the band comparisons to Meshuggah). (And you can blame the short running time on a couple of instrumental interludes, the opening title track and “The Palamnaeusus Fulvipes”, which acts like a coda for the preceding track more than a stand-alone song.)

There are crushing head-bangers (“Pigs in the Market” and “Our Kingdom Come”) and more expansive, complex opuses, too (the systematic dirge of “Mustard Gas & Roses” which features one of the most blood-curdling howls this listener has heard in some time, and “Flesh to Gold”).

But the track that truly stands out from the pack, and one that will probably ultimately be one of the best metal anthems of the year, is “Faces of Abomination”. The track utilizes the best of what Misguided Aggression has to offer: sick breakdowns, unbridled groove, thick riffs and glorious howls. The song marks the only time the band opts to throw in the slightest clean, melodic vocals (dropped way down in the mix), and also features this nice little trick of slowing the song down to an almost-standstill, adding to its urgent feel.

At 26 minutes, the whole trip is over far too soon, and you’ll soon find yourself reaching for the repeat button. Bands like this sometimes like to overstay their welcome, but Misguided Aggression should have no fear with exploring this metallic soundscape again and again. Highest recommendation to fans of straight-ahead metal.

Silverstein -- 'A Shipwreck in the Sand' [review]

Silverstein - A Shipwreck in the Sand
Victory Records (3/31/09)
Alternative rock / Metal

Behold Silverstein’s finest hour.

On their fourth full-length studio album, the band goes the concept route, turning in A Shipwreck in the Sand, 14 tracks split into four chapters (playing out like a double-LP for those old enough to remember actual records). The concept, as it were, is the destruction of a relationship, revolving around the couple’s house burning down. Their history, courtship and ultimate betrayal plays through the songs, the only curveball being the title track, which offers up the at first seemingly out-of-place tale of a ship captain whose loyal crew has been beaten down by the journey and eventually revolts. In hindsight, the allegory is fairly clear.

It’s not the story though, that makes this Silverstein’s best outing. Instead, it’s the overall musicianship the band has been able to cultivate over their career. While they could have easily been lumped in with the rest of the dual-vocalist screamo bands that popped up in the early part of the decade, Silverstein offered a little something more. The clear vocals were just melodic enough, and the groove in the guitar work just deep enough, that the band managed to stand out and craft a sound uniquely its own (when you hear a Silverstein song, you can immediately tell it's Silverstein).

On this album, everything that made the band unique—each element of its sound and approach to songwriting—seems to have been ratcheted up a notch or 10. Just listen to “American Dream” with its balladic opening that gives way to a hardcore dirge (the spark) that the band is more than willing to douse with enough melody (the fuel) to start, well, a house fire. That driving, hook-laden guitar work pops up in every song, but this time out the band looks to rely on a lot of solid bass work, too, to push the songs forward (check out “You‘re All I Have”).

And Silverstein's hardcore side is starting to drift toward Atreyu territory, without the obvious rock influence. The vocals, which occasionally had the potential to grate on listeners in past efforts, seem a lot more restrained (finally). And surprisingly, even when someone like Scott Wade (Comeback Kid) shows up for a guest spot (on “Born Dead“), it only accentuates the band’s vocal efforts, instead of overshadowing things.

They also plays around with an ethereal element on some of the songs (the interlude “Their Lips Sink Ships” or the opening portion of the title track), creating an almost dreamlike mood, to be destroyed by the explosive follow-ups (the grinding “I Knew I Couldn’t Trust You” or the blistering “I Am The Arsonist”).

Ultimately, what the band has done a fantastic job of here, is creating a series of moods, dragging the listener on a musical journey through the heartache, betrayal, vengeance and angst—weighty matters to be sure—that are tempered with a lighter mood in the music’s melody. That said, a fitting crescendo to this is album closer “The End”, an acoustic duet with female vocalist Lights, which weaves a tale of redemption and inevitability and apology, with a nice coda featuring a throwback to the earlier tale of the ship captain.

This is, hands down, Silverstein’s best effort yet, and easily a contender for album of the year.

Within The Ruins -- 'Creature' [review]

Within the Ruins - Creature
Victory Records (2/17/09)
Metal / Hardcore

Treading a razor-wire between metal, hardcore and death metal, Within the Ruins melds together a schizophrenic offering of tech-infused metal that relies on some elements from any genre within its reach. The result, while nothing terribly imaginative, manages to capture your attention.

The band has these moments, like on the galloping “Dig a Ditch”, where you’d almost expect them to break out into full-on, melodic, European-metal mode (which may have been a welcome change of pace), but for some reason it prefers to keep fully grounded into a metal/hardcore rut, so to speak. It seems the best thing the group has going for them, in terms of creative approach, is the imaginative dual-guitar attack that manages to incorporate just enough noodling before becoming overbearing (kind of like the anti-Norma Jean). Still, while incorporating multiple elements into each song could prevent them from dragging, the opposite seems to happen on occasion. Take opener “The Book of Books” or “Extinguish Them” as examples—the songs feel some three times longer than their four-minute runtimes would have you believe.

Ultimately, what we have here is a divisive release. Fans of hardcore will draw comparisons to some of their favorites on the scene; the same for metal-heads. Creatures sounds like a bunch of things thrown into a blender and then spilled about—at times devoid of direction, which is a real shame.

But Within the Ruins knocks one right out of the park with the instrumental “Jump Ship”, chock-full of melody and acoustic bliss. It would seem that incorporating more of that sentiment into its sound—more variety in the vocals (and no, the hardcore sing-along chants don’t count, though they do sound fantastic on “Tractor Pull”), and more grinding, groovy riffs instead of the machine-gunner approach would lead to a much fuller experience.

In the end, it appears the most divisive part of this release is that there are so many elements on here to love, but for some reason you can’t quite bring yourself to do it on account of the finished product coming out so chaotic. Ironically, song after song garners nothing more than a shrug, with nothing completely standing out and grabbing your attention, but once the album is over you find yourself giving it another spin. Did you enjoy it without realizing it, or are you just searching for something to latch on to? And that’s the most puzzling aspect of this Creature.

The Sleeping -- 'What it Takes' [review]

The Sleeping - What It Takes
Victory Records (2/17/09)
Alternative rock / Post-Hardcore

On their third album, The Sleeping continues on a well-worn path of post-hardcore, alternative rock that exploded a million bands toward the end of the first half of this decade. While most might roll their eyes at this endeavor because, well, let’s face it, most of the scene’s audience has moved on, and only the die-hard fans of specific bands stuck around at the party, there's still something to enjoy on What It Takes.

What The Sleeping has going for them is a sort of maturity to their musical approach (think the early years of Thursday). Sure, the band is, for the most part, taking big liberties emulating Rise Against, but they temper that approach on this album with added elements of keyboards and Theremin (just take a listen to the up-tempo anthem, “Friday Night”), ultimately giving them a wide palette from which to pull ideas for tracks.