You are in a 20′ by 20′ room.
You see a metal band. They are singing about finding a vial of holy water in an ancient, cobweb-laden mausoleum.
What do you do?
Visigoth had one song called “The Dungeon Master”. Scottish power-metal heroes Gloryhammer released a concept album about an evil wizard and his army of undead unicorns. Bryan Josh of Mostly Autumn made a solo album with a narrative that included an end-of-level monster. But with song titles like “Vial of Holy Water Found in an Ancient, Cobweb-Laden Mausoleum”, “Lighting the Mummy on Fire” and “Lair of the Beholder” has anyone released an album which sounds like an entire dungeon set to music?
Unearthed Elf is actually a solo project from Keith D of progressive doom metallers Arctic Sleep, largely written while he was incapacitated with a knee injury. As well as all the vocals and guitars, he plays all instruments, including the drums. As a concept album about the aforementioned Elf, the imagery in the lyrics and song titles would be little more than a gimmick if the music wasn’t up to scratch, but this is also a record with plenty to say musically.
It kicks off with the monstrous old-school metal riff of the title track, the densely layered, almost symphonic “Never See The Sun Again” and the atmospheric progressive-tinged “Eternal Night”, and those first three numbers set the tone for the record. What we have is a skilful mix of the textures of melodic death metal and old-school classic metal, with a dash of modern progressive rock adding sonic variety. The record eschews death-growls in favour of clean vocals throughout, with a couple of moments of Gregorian chant thrown in for good measure. There’s more than a hint of Mikael Akerfeldt about Keith D’s vocals, and the resulting sound has echoes of Opeth, Paradise Lost and Amorphis. It’s got a huge sound with multiple layers of guitars and vocals, and it manages to sound epic without being overblown.
Far more that just the soundtrack to a dungeon crawl, “Into the Catacomb Abyss” is an ambitious and impressive metal album. The album is released on October 31st, Halloween night.
A couple of tweets from an acquaintance about the ubiquity of Iron Maiden and other classic rock and metal bands as background music in bars in Romania shows how mainland Europe has a quite different relationship with rock and metal compared to indie-dominated Britain. An equivalent bar in Britain would be playing Oasis or Ed Sheeran.
Italian occult metallers Ecnephias are a band with one foot in the metal camp and one foot in the gothic rock camp. Their self-titled album has echoes of The Sisters of Mercy as well as more metal sounds, the overall effect recalling mid-period Paradise Lost. Instrumentally it’s a great record, with strong dynamics, plenty of light and shade, and some impressively fluid guitar work. But it’s the vocals that let it down. They’re not good at judging when to use death-style growls and when to use clean vocals, frequently using growls on the parts which aren’t especially heavy, which doesn’t quite work. You’re left with a feeling that this would have been a stronger record had they used clean vocals more extensively. Still, when it all comes together, it can be excellent, as evidenced by the spiralling gothic “Nyctophilia” and “Vipra Negra” towards the end of the album.
California’s Secrets of the Sky brew up a monstrous wall of sound with the album “Pathway”. The eleven-track album contains six actual songs interspersed with brief snippets of sound effects that go from crashing waves and thunderstorms to ominous footsteps. With no choruses or solos the songs instead take the form of dense soundscapes of layered guitars, doom-laden drums and washes of keys. Unlike Ecnephias they get the vocals dead right, evil-sounding growls for the heavy parts and clean vocals for the reflective, atmospheric moments. The end result is an intense and in places very heavy record where even the lighter parts can sound truly menacing.
Norwegian black metallers Crest of Darkness pull absolutely no punches on this four track EP, consisting of three originals plus one cover. The three original numbers, “Evil Messiah”, “Armageddon” and “Abandoned by God” are all piledrivingly heavy; in-your-face screamed vocals married to monstrous old-school metal guitars, often more than one great riff in one song, and the cover of Alice Cooper’s “Sick Things” is splendidly demented.
We’ve had Viking Metal and Pirate Metal, now Goblin Metal is a thing. With song titles like “Snax & Violence”, “We Need A Gimmick” and “Full Body Xplosion” and a guest appearance from Andrew WK this is a band who don’t take themselves too seriously. Although vocalist Scorpion’s goblin-style vocals do wear a bit thin after a while, the varied, inventive and sometimes off-the wall instrumentation suggests they’re something more than a one-joke band, and they clearly sound as though their having great fun.
And finally, something for those who can’t abide contemporary cookie monsters and insist on proper singing. veteran Brazilian power-metallers are back with an album filled with galloping hard rockers and epic power ballads, with big riffs, soaring melodies, jaw-dropping guitar soloing and occasional prog atmospherics. Former Rhapsody of Fire frontman Fabio Lione is on fine form on vocals, and the album also features guest appearances from Doro Pesch and Epica’s Simone Simons. It’s all very old-school, but very well done, with a polished production and enough solid songwriting that there’s no room for any filler.