Zetalambmary: October 2008

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

AC/DC: Black Ice

Year released: 2008
Label: Columbia
Official Website: www.acdc.com

Tracks:

1. Rock 'N Roll Train [4:22]

2. Skies On Fire [3:34]

3. Big Jack [3:57]

4. Anything Goes [3:22]

5. War Machine [3:10]

6. Smash 'N Grab [4:06]

7. Spoilin' For A Fight [3:17]

8. Wheels [3:29]

9. Decibel [3:34]

10. Stormy May Day [3:10]

11. She Likes Rock 'N Roll [3:53]

12. Money Made [4:16]

13. Rock 'N Roll Dream [4:41]

14. Rocking All The Way [3:23]

15. Black Ice [3:25]

_________________________________________________________________________

Everyone's favourite Aussie Hard Rock/Heavy Metal (whichever one you please, really) is back in Black Ice, and this time, they seem to be following the latest trend among bands hailing from the '70s and '80s; that of having a rather lengthy album track time. Not that anyone is complaining about that (*grins*).

First impressions: They are as classic as ever, sticking to their old style faithfully. As old fans might have already noticed by looking at the track names, they are still as obsessed as ever with rock 'n roll. Notice how many times that ubiquitous music term appeared up there in that track list? Yeah, rest assured, that is how much these guys love their style, and they ain't changing their sound just yet. This is a plus point for them actually, because the only way for most old bands to survive now is to stick to their original sound (P.S. Look at Death Magnetic). Speaking of sound, AC/DC strikes me as a hard rock variation of Rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, and pop punk band Hawthorne Heights. All three of them have something in common, and whether this is good or not, I leave it up to you. Notice how all of them have songs that sound so similar to one another, apart from a few exceptions, that you cannot tell whether the CD has gone on to the next track? Yeah, that is their kind of sound, and I mean every alphabet of it.

Whenever you hear a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, you know it is a Red Hot Chili Peppers song; you just can't seem to name it. Similarly, whenever you hear an AC/DC song, you know it is an AC/DC song, but you have trouble naming it as well. It is thanks to that trademark whiny-and-high-pitched-yet-rock-n-rollish vocals, that we have yet another decent rock 'n roll album today. Seriously speaking, if there were three words to describe this album, it would just be “rock 'n roll”. After immersing myself in Black Ice, I cannot help but resemble the band members themselves when they were naming the songs.

If there was anything good about aging, this is probably it. AC/DC shows us that having an expanding sea of white hair, flabby forearms, and an exponential jump in the number of wrinkles caressing the aged skin are no obstacles in their tenacious quest to continue reminding the world of the existence of their unique brand of hard rock. Rocked their way to dizzying heights of stardom back then, still rocking their way to even dizzier heights of stardom today. Black Ice certainly entombs the undying passion and earnestness of AC/DC's music, for it is stellar but slowly dying with the times.

Take a listen!: A potential single that isn't a single yet, and was also the theme song for the Marvel comic superhero "War Machine" from the 2010 film, "Iron Man 2".

You have probably heard that AC/DC was the epitome of “old school rock”, and with this fifteenth album of theirs, they are still “old school rock” even though we are already well into the 21st century. There are many other newer rock 'n roll bands out there today, ala the Finnish hybrid band, Lordi, and others with a unique brand of rock 'n roll themselves such as Bon Jovi. However, AC/DC will still dominate the old school rock 'n roll scene, for their music just strikes a nostalgic chord deep within those who have lived through the 1980's, and tugs at the heartstrings of new listeners with a déjà vu-like feel. Being the longest AC/DC album to date, Black Ice is definitely worth every dollar if you are a hardcore “old school rock” fan, or a rock 'n roll fan looking to turn back music time by a few decades. With lively & upbeat guitar riffs, coupled with rhythmically-simple & thudding drum beats, what is best about this album is that AC/DC does not lose their rock 'n roll energy along the way. Many a times, bands who write many songs at one go tend to lose themselves along the way, and they always end up having a lackluster closure to a potentially great album. Being a rock 'n roll band, starting and ending rock 'n roll style is perfect for any AC/DC album, as the genre is certainly only worthy of being defined by none other than itself.

Electrifying old geezers: From left to right - Brian Johnson (Vocalist), Malcolm Young (Rhythm Guitar), Cliff Williams (Bass Guitar), Angus Young (Lead Guitar), Phil Rudd (Drums)

Overall, Black Ice is a firm, down-to-earth retro album that will certainly appeal to the masses belonging to the young and middle-aged working class group. Teenage Hard Rock fans would generally like it as well, as every AC/DC album more or less oozes the band's signature style, albeit in a nuanced way as each year flies by. C'mon, even legends of rock 'n roll are not impervious to the cruel stream of time that marches ever onwards without batting an eyelid over the glorious past. It is however, amazing how older music tend to outlast their younger counterparts of the 21st century. AC/DC can certainly be a band you can trust on to fall back to should you get tired of ephemeral modern rock hits.

As their name implies, AC/DC never fails to electrify.

Above: A train's ticket that is worth dying for, and the very first single off "Black Ice".

Verdict: 8.8 / 10

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Song of The Week: the GazettE - Reila

Though the GazettE has been labeled as nu metal or alternative metal occasionally, you can probably recognise straight off that its a japanese visual kei band. In any case, zetalambmary is a metal (and rock) music review blog so it works anyway.

A song from their maxi-single released in 2005, the first impression Reila gives, especially in the first 35 seconds or so before the vocalist begins to sing, is most probably derived from the simple yet beautiful piano part as well as the interesting combination of using an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar in tandem. This pretty much shows the level of musicianship this band is capable of. Aoi is my favourite member of the band (lets face it, us metalheads always eyeball the guitarists more, and this guy just sways like a grass caught in a hurricane during his guitar-playing XD) and the fact that his acoustic playing can strike up a good rhythm with Uruha throughout the song comes to me as a pleasant surprise. There's no 'boardist in the line-up, and I reckon keyboards are rarely used in the GazettE's songs, but while whoever tickled the ivories ain't no Janne Wirman, its inclusion is a really good idea and totally helps add to the atmosphere of the song.

Ruki's vocals shows little power in this song, but expresses truckloads of emotion, and there's this slight tremolo to his voice that just makes you fondly catch onto his words. Nothing else in this song, save the mournfully slow guitar solo at 3.15, can possibly express the whole feeling of melancholy and strong emotion more than his singing.

This song is amazingly clear, every individual instrument, even Reita's bass guitar, can be distinguished. In fact the weakest link seems to be Kai's drumming, which seems rather soft than most, but its not exactly a bad thing. Gawdknows a sad song like this doesn't need a million decibels worth of blast beats tearing it up.

Listen to Reila, the 7 plus minutes pretty much flies by. Get sad. Cry. Or you can just sway with Aoi. Watch the youtube vid below and you'll see what I mean =P. Its english subbed as well, in case you feel like knowing what Ruki's singing and don't happen to know a shred of japanese.

I know this site's not meant to be personal, but this is dedicated to the one who sent me this song. Because I don't know what to leave her before my imminent departure. I don't know if she'll approve of this, there are a lot of things I don't know. But I'm leaving, and now I just wish to know that she knows I want her to live well.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Dark Tranquility: Fiction

April 24 2007
Century Media

Tracks:

1. Nothing to No One [4:10]

2. The Lesser Faith [4:37]

3. Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive) [4:24]

4. Blind at Heart [4:21]

5. Icipher [4:39]

6. Inside the Particle Storm [5:29]

7. Empty Me [4:59]

8. Misery's Crown [4:14]

9. Focus Shift [3:36]

10. The Mundane and the Magic [5:17]

Pioneers of melodic death metal from the legendary Swedish Gothenburg metal scene, Dark Tranquility has had an illustrious 18 year career thus far. Throughout the years, they hold a mark of high musical integrity, producing music of consistent high proficiency and with a few line-up changes. Their latest album released in 2007, Fiction, does not deviate much from their established pathos. Production remains excellent, Mikael Stanne still manages to growl in a powerful and yet emotional manner, the lyrics continue to be versatile and artistically tasteful and the album generally abides by the formula of Gothenburg melodic death accompanied by lots of keyboard melodies. In fact, the only points of contention lies in what might or might not be the over-use of keyboards, as well as Stanne's decision to include clean vocals for the first time since Projector in 1999.

Unlike some people, I personally have no problems with the use of keyboards. They add a more melodic element and can improve the atmosphere of a song. Moreover, Dark Tranquility's 'electronics' man Martin Brändström can really pull it off, songs like Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive) and Empty Me have hauntingly beautiful parts. The problem thus to me, doesn't seem to be that keyboards are too prevalent, but the lack of presence in the guitars section. A comparative absence of frequent solos caused the keyboards to be pushed to the forefront, where it appears to take up melodic duties while Niklas Sundin and Martin Henriksson starts covering the background tones instead and only coming into the spotlight with occasional riffs which were mostly too short to give the listener much pleasure. Had more focus been placed on the guitars, the album would have been vastly better and more befitting of its genre.

As to the clean singing, Stanne sings pretty nicely in a rugged forlorn way and I have no objection to including some of that here and there. In fact, I rather enjoyed Misery's Crown for his singing out soulful lyrics for a change. Strange as it is for female clean vocals (in this case Nell Sigland from Theatre of Tragedy) to be included in a Dark Tranquility album, I felt the Mundane and the Magic wasn't all that bad either, albeit a little slow and simplistic on its melody.

Overall, despite the criticism, Fiction is a solid album with good quality, just perhaps not up to the standard of the longest standing band in the Gothenburg metal scene. New listeners of Dark Tranquility might do better with some of their previous albums, such as Damage Done and Character and understand with greater clarity the contributions made to melodic death metal by this band.

Verdict: 3.5/5

(photos from darktranquility.com)

Genre Seeker: Introducing... Mathcore.

Protest The Hero: Sequioa Throne

Between The Buried And Me: Alaska

Mathcore, is a variation of metalcore, which is itself, also a variation of metal. This genre's music is typically rhythmically complex, with no set time signatures at all for even a few mere seconds. In fact, it really makes one wonder if the musicians behind the music are mathematical genii whom so ingeniously incorporated mathematically-inspired tempo and rhythm, or simply rambunctious music rebels who need to release their pent up frustration through lightning-fast playing on their instruments. The music is generally fast-paced, driving, and melodically appealing in a grinding kind of way. The guitar parts are usually extremely fast, and play solos that have complex guitar riffs squeezed into them. Even the vocals are usually fast, but harsh or not, it varies from band to band.

For example, BTBAM (Between The Buried And Me) typically has harsh vocals on their songs, such as the death growls heard throughout 'Alaska'. On the other hand, bands like Protest The Hero has a vocalist that actually sings [check out their songs in the playlist above].

Well, Mathcore may not be the casual metalhead's cuppa tea, but it is worth giving it a try. Metalcore fans especially, might soon just find themselves calculating infinity while rocking out to songs that sound more like diffused mathematics.

North Carolina Progressive Metal/Mathcore band, BTBAM

Canadian Mathcore band, Protest The Hero

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Featured Musician: ICS Vortex

Shagrath may be the iconic voice, Silenoz the creative shredder who comes up with most of their work and Hellhammer, as his name suggests, is one helluva hammering drummer. But when it comes down to it, what sets Dimmu Borgir apart most from their fellow black metal peers all comes down to this guy.

Simen Hestnæs aka ICS Vortex, apart from being the bassist and clean vocalist for Dimmu Borgir, is also the vocalist for Code and Lamented Souls. He has also lent his voice to Borknagar and the avant-garde metal band Arcturus, playing a pivotal role in the latter's last album, Sideshow Symphonies, which gained much critical acclaim and is arguably one of the best metal albums of 2005.

Vortex plays the bass guitar very competently, but his singing is just.. woah. Its hardly what you'd expect from someone in the metal scene I'd say. 8 minute-ers like Dimmu Borgir's Kings of the Carnival Creation get turned into epic gems just by that 30 odd seconds of his singing at the 4.30 second mark, its how his singing can just define a song. Looking just at his 198cm hulking frame, with that long wild blonde hair of his, who would expect a soulful voice from such a man huh?

According to wikipedia, Hestnæs gave himself the name ICS Vortex as a kinda joke on Garm, whom he replaced as vocalist in a band twice, as one of Garm's aliases was Fiery G. Maelstrom, and Icy S. Vortex is like a complete opposite of that: fiery and icy, maelstrom and vortex. That's not a really cool reason for an alias, but I'm personally partial to the word vortex so I think its a pretty awesome name either way =D.

Anyway, a video tribute to this guy from youtube is below, encompassing vocals from several of his songs from the various different bands he is/has been in, including the part for Kings of the Carnival Creation. A bit disgruntled there weren't really any from his Borknagar days but ah well Allehelgens Dod I Hellveds Rike kinda makes up for it I guess. Its a rather cool video as well, showing him in some performances, and also in some personal moments.

(Photos from photopit.com)

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Song of The Week: Celtic Frost - Os Abysmi Vel Daath

Yeah so the honour of being of our very first song of the week goes to Os Abysmi Vel Daath by Celtic Frost. A track off their 5th and last studio album, Monotheist, released in 2006. Its Celtic Frost's first full album released after they reformed in 2001, having disbanded in 1993, and will be the only one, seeing that they've recently decided to split-up once again for good.

Celtic Frost have changed their style a bit over the years, since their first formation in 1984, ranging from thrash to gothic and doom. But this Swiss band's reputation as a leading influence on extreme metal stays with them pretty much all the time.

This song works in a pretty cool way. Its has a commonly slow tempo with the usual distorted, abrasive guitar tone a la doom metal. But true to their avant-garde roots of experimentation, there's some really eerie squealing in the background music which, coupled with the continuously heavy chugging riff, makes it chillingly atmospheric. And the vocals are so creepily dead and somehow simultaneously vicious, it just raises the hair off your skin. Lyrics are kinda poetic, depressingly so, though the chorus, if it can be called that, gets rather repetitive. But that just makes the whole song more chilling instead.

This is not a mainstream song you jig along to on the streets while playing it on your ipod, or feel contemplative about when you sit on the bus listening to it. Its not melodic or catchy, few doom metal songs are, and not everybody take such songs well. What it is though, is frighteningly dark and menacing. Late at night, draw your curtains, sit in a dark corner and give Os Abysmi Vel Daath a try. Your blood will run cold.

Found a slideshow of Celtic Frost on youtube that goes with the song, check it out.

Metallica: Death Magnetic

Year released: 2008
Label: Vertigo Records
Official Websites: www.metallica.com, www.metclub.com

Tracks:

1. That Was Just Your Life [7:08]

2. The End Of The Line [7:52]

3. Broken, Beat & Scarred [6:26]

4. The Day That Never Comes [7:56]

5. All Nightmare Long [7:58]

6. Cyanide [6:40]

7. The Unforgiven III [7:47]

8. The Judas Kiss [8:01]

9. Suicide & Redemption [9:58]

10. My Apocalypse [5:01]
____________________________________________________________________

Californian metal giants, Metallica, comprising of James Hetfield (Vocalist), Lars Ulrich (Drummer), Kirk Hammett (Lead Guitarist), and Robert Trujillo (Bassist), are back with a new, explosive album that rages on throughout the 74 minutes or so of album time with an energy that masks their age but showcases the immortality of metal music.

True to their early thrash roots, Metallica has taken a step back in time and embraced their original beginnings, and the result is an album chocked full of earnest, head-bangin' metal songs. The album theme is as apocalyptic as ever, addressing issues like hopelessness, guilt, death, religion, most of which are typically covered by most if not all metal bands. Being one of the Big Daddies of metal, it is not surprising that Metallica would have an album theme like this as well. What sets them apart from most other young metal bands these days however, is the fact that they do not try to be someone they are not – they remain true to their sound. In fact, this album stands out for the very fact that it does not stand out, as Metallica has ironically managed to spruce up this increasingly stereotypical metal theme with the usual punishing guitar riffs, ear-pounding drum beats that do not lose out to a piledriver's, and angsty vocals; all of which were previously the standard 3-in-1 package deal that came to be associated with most thrash metal albums.

Seems like only the metal scene is tolerant of staunch, genre-abiding artistes, and it sure is a scene that has enjoyed commercial success in recent years.

The only complaints I might have about this album however, would be the length of the individual album tracks themselves. The tracks are almost as lengthy as Dream Theater's rock symphonies of songs, and being thrash and not progressive metal, hearing 5 minutes or more of tearing guitar solos and rhythmically simple drum beats tend to get boring after making your way through half of the chaotic world of Death Magnetic. Long songs are not necessarily boring, but if an artiste wish for its fans to appreciate every second of such lengthy songs, they have to inject some novelty into the instrumentals or vocals, say, like having more complicated rhythms for the drums of course. Overall, the long guitar solos that bridge sections of the titanic songs together are melodic enough (for thrash metal), but they tend to get boring too as the bridges seem a tad too long.

Rawr!: The bad-ass members of Metallica - From left to right, Kirk Hammett (Lead Guitar), James Hetfield (Vocalist), Lars Ulrich (Drums), and Robert Trujillo (Bass Guitar)

As described by music reviewer Josh Tyrangiel, “The songs fly by with the force of the world's angriest amusement-park ride.” (TIME, September 29, 2008), but after riffing and ripping for minutes and minutes on a sole track alone, much of the energy listeners felt initially would have all but diminished. Velocity and raw power alone are not going to make listeners want to listen on beyond the 3-minute mark, but they do succeed in giving listeners some additional 'music fodder', which means tracks that are listenable when you have no desire to listen to any particular song at the moment but just want to pump some air vibrations into your ear canals.

Overall, this is a good album. Death Magnetic is brilliant in that it reminds metal fans yet again why thrash metal was so popular to begin with, and it certainly does get adrenaline pumping into one's veins as the songs speed by. Apart from the lengthiness, the album is not bogged down by any other disamenities, unless you count the music purists' view of metal music as noisy, unrefined, and a jumble of sounds mixed together in the 'wrong' way.

So, if you feel like you need to hear what thrash metal is all about, this would be the perfect album of 2008 to get and start off with. Non-fans of thrash metal however, you can always still give Metallica a try as well, and perhaps try to appreciate the music of one of the metal pioneers that inspired most modern American metal bands, and even influenced peers such as Megadeth and Black Sabbath.

The two music videos above are of the nicer songs off the album, watch and enjoy!

Verdict: 8.9

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Well, I guess this is it.

Not the most professionally well-done site, but I guess it'll do.

We've got a coupla ideas, see how it adds up. My take is, album reviews, song of the week thingy, maybe an intro or two about a specific musician (I really like some 'boardists), some random stuff like I dunno, the fashion sense of metalheads (XD). Hey c'mon look at the name of this blog, if it ain't random, hell I dunno what is.

Which is why yeah, don't question the origins of the name.

An email has already been set up, so I guess we're ready to receive hate mails and disses at zetalambmary@gmail.com.

Friday, October 10, 2008

News

11 June 2011 - Seth Putnam (of Anal Cunt) Passes Away At 43

13 May 2011 - Mastodon's Brent Hinds Has 2 New Projects!

14 January 2011 - Stand A Chance To Win Albums From Us!

09 November 2010 - Nergal Checks In From The Hospital

01 September 2010 - Nergal Responds To Fans' Concern

15 August 2010 - ChthoniC 閃靈: Mirror Of Retribution tour (Live In Singapore!)

31 May 2010 - ChthoniC 閃靈 To Perform In Singapore

14 April 2010 - BTBAM's First Ever Stop In Singapore

21 March 2010 - On Hiatus

21 February 2009 - No, we are still alive.

12 October 2008 - Well, I guess this is it.

Magazine

We have a physical magazine that has been out since 13th February, 2011. It can be found on sale at 3 record shops in Singapore for S$9.00 each, namely:

Hell's Labyrinth:
Address: 5 Coleman Street #02-06, Excelsior Shopping Centre
Tel: None Fax: None
E-mail: None, but it's Facebook page is updated regularly.

Inokii:
Address: 14 Scotts Road #03-30, Far East Plaza, SG 228213
Tel: 68367657 Fax: None
E-mail: inokii@gmail.com

Roxy Records & Trading:
Address: 5 Coleman Street #02-15, Excelsior Shopping Centre, SG 179805
Tel: 63377783 Fax: 63345705
E-mail: rrt@pacific.net.sg

If you are not interested in getting it from the above shops but directly from us instead, simply drop us an e-mail at zetalambmary@gmail.com telling us when and where in Singapore do you want to meet up.

Thank you for visiting our blog!