A very short review..... Insomnium have just released Winter's Gate and below (in full) is the track listing as taken from the album cover:

1: Winter's Gate (40:02)

Yep, that's right, one track based on a Norse Viking saga. So what do you think it sounds like?
Think Tubular Bells with way more guitar and death metal growling - This is just absurdly epic



As an aside  it appears the best format to listen to such excess is the CD.

The CD allows you to hear the whole 40 minutes in one track as it should be whereas the vinyl, for obvious reasons, has to be split in to two tracks. I-Tunes however take this even further and in their stupidity have the album listed for download as seven separate tracks, all under 7 minutes. The rationale I guess is that the sort of people who only download have the attention span of a goldfish and therefore can't comprehend the idea of a lengthy piece of music but that is their loss.....

Now this is weird.... I have a new album from the New Model Army nd it's not my go to album of the moment. This says more about the abundance of fantastic albums around rather than a comment on how good Winter is

I think also the last album Between Dog and Wolf was the best ever sounding NMA album. For that recording they broke with tradition and utilised a studio fully with multi tracking of drums and a full on sonic polish from Joe Baresi (Tool, Apocalyptica). For this album they have resorted back to a band in the studio recording and whilst there is a live energy to the music it just sounds flat compared to Dog and Wolf

But to the music - the opener is helpfully called the Beginning and stretches to nearly 7 minutes which in NMA terms is a lifetime ! It builds slowly but never drags before the crescendo. Burn the Castle is the most direct political song they have done for a while, Vengeance for the 21st Century with a chorus that just needs to be shouted.

Echo November is a short 3 minute blast of melody with added female backing vocals but the absolute jewel is Born Feral... What seems to be a brooding tale of what it's like to be the hardest man on an estate who can see the end of his supremacy. It builds on a loping beat before turning into a pulsing tribal rhythm and is easily the highlight of the album.

Lyrically it's as good as anything Justin Sullivan has written in the last 22 years - check out the acoustic Die Trying and it refugee tale

I still think 13 tracks is still too long for an album and  if it had cut 2 tracks for use as B-sides the album wouldn't be any worse for it. However that is just nit picking and what is just another fantastic set of NMA songs done in their own inimitable style.

 

So you walk into the boss of your Record Company and announce you want to record an acoustic black metal album. With a female choir. In an unlit tomb. And live……

Normally such thinking would be laughed out of hand but thankfully an executive somewhere though “why not” and so Myrkur got to record Mausoleum

It shouldn’t work but it is utterly, utterly captivating.  Firstly the sound – You can actually hear it’s recorded in a cavernous mausoleum, all echoes and reverb.

There are only nine tracks with just two  lasting 4 minutes so it’s more of an EP than an album but it suits the stripped bare nature of the music 

The first few tracks are played only on piano and are reworked tracks from the debut album. The massed female voices work brilliantly and there is a delicious chill to the sound

Towards the end of the album the piano is replaced by an acoustic guitar (courtesy of Ulver) and it possible get even better – The Bathory cover of Song to Hall Up High and  Dybt I Skoven end the album in triumphant fashion

The black metal traditionalist will probably hate this but it is a simply breathtaking piece of music

So thirty years on and I'm still buying Doro albums.... The latest is a live album called Strong & Proud. It looks promising from another fantastic cover (with links to the legendary Triumph and Agony artwork) but it's only when you look at a bit closer at the track listing that you realise this is a cut and shut job

Some tracks are taken from an gig with an orchestra, two from the Wacken outdoor festival and the rest from a standard gig. Even weirder the tracks are all mixed in together rather than all the tracks from one gig running concurrently

That said there are some gems on here - the duet with Blaze Bayley on the Iron Maiden classic Fear of the Dark (with orchestra !), very early solo tracks such as Save my Soul and some classic Warlock such as a rampaging Hellbound.

I could do without the Accept cover just because Udo's vocals really grate and All we Are has been too many times before but on the whole this is another fantastic slice of headbanging metal so flash those devil horns and sing along

Sometimes you just hear something and it's like "dear mother of all things dark and disturbing..."

Goatpsalm come from Russia and the album is called Downstream. It is very unsettling but also possibly brilliant.

Here's where I have problems explaining myself. It's the closest I've ever heard a band get to the feel of the Fields of Nephilim but it doesn't sound like the Nephilim.
The songs are allowed to slowly build (in the case of opener Grey Rocks it's starts with the sounds of the forest before instruments arrive one by one) and there is a recurring use of a mouth harp that gives the album that western field that the Nephs achieved with the harmonica.

The vocals are very much the deep sepulchral growl you would expect but there is no throbbing bass line to it.... Very atmospheric but not recommended if you want a party.

If this is what the youth of Russia are listening to we should be afraid. Very afraid 

Sometimes you know things are a bad idea such as remixes but you still go along and buy it....

Public Service Broadcasting have just released the Race for Space Remixes and whilst not an absolute stinker there is nothing here that betters the originals. Most of the remixes at least keep some samples or themes from the original track so that you can at least identify the source

It interesting to hear the songs reordered and for Korolev to have a place in the track listing but it's really not essential (however it has to be said the 'Agent Orange' coloured vinyl looks fantastic !)


What is a great big steaming turd of an album is the Meds: B sides by Placebo.

I love Meds, it's one of my favourite albums ever but this companion piece is awful. There was only one B side called YOUNEEDMEMORETHANINEEDU which is a decent track, slightly on the dark side of most Placebo output.

The rest of the album is remixes, live tracks and a demo. The live track of Meds sounds like it was recorded at the back of the festival on a mobile phone. It's so muted and muffled you have to turn the volume up and then of course the next live track of Infra Red is recorded properly and suddenly your ears burst if your wearing headphones

The remixes are woeful especially the Rain and Tears remix of Song to Say Goodbye. My favourite song off the original album but over the course of an exceedingly dull 10 minutes remix I completely fail to spot any of the original song.

If you are a Placebo fan buy the one original song but avoid the album at all costs

hmmm..... just purchased the new Gojira album and it's a bit of a disappointment


The opening track of Magma sounds like Tool in places and the vocals are all dispassionate and spoken. The trick with the spoken vocals is repeated again during the album and is a real mistake as it robs the relevant tracks of emotion and feel


The second track Silvera starts with some furious drumming but falls back into a chugging groove instead of kicking on


The Cell is my favourite track with a thrash metal feel and vocals straight out of the Sepultura songbook


Yellow Stone is a complete filler of bass noises and the closing track Liberation literally contains nothing !


There are glimpses of a great band and the interesting keyboards used in Stranded should be explored more but overall this won't be an album on repeat