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JJ's Bizarre Blog #42 - Precious Gems Collection Vol.2 - The Cursed Breed and the Lone Ravens
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Greetings, everyone! The time has come for yet another Bizarre Blog installment. Hey, what number are we on again? Ah, yes. That reminds me. A question often pondered is perhaps the ultimate question of all - the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Maybe we should build a planet sized supercomputer to try and calculate that one or something. Until then, it seems each of us has our own interpretation to this question, so allow me to present you some of mine. I believe the point of living is to experience things, discover things and explore the Universe before us, to dare to always venture onwards. And most importantly, do so by staying true to yourself and what you believe in. In this spirit, I have gathered for you today the second collection of rare, obscure, interesting or unique stuff from my musical library that can’t fill out a blog on their own. From my world to yours, let’s dive right in!
To continue the biomechanical theme I seem to be on this year, one band that has become a favourite of mine in the last years are a Swiss collective known as Sybreed. This Geneva-based outfit present a hard hitting, yet catchy and melodic form of industrial metal that has all the sci-fi goodness one expects from the genre while wrapping it in an approachable package that never sacrifices its richness or variety courtesy of the riff machine Drop and the demonically angelic voice of Benjamin Nominet. They’re kind of like a different, more introspective and less dystopian Fear Factory. Sadly, the band ceased to exist over a decade ago and there doesn’t seem to be much hope for a reunion. Regardless, the four albums they blessed us within their lifespan are just banger after banger and it’s no shock that despite their split, their self described “death wave” music continues to be relevant and garner new devoted fans (like me) to this day.
On the plus side, all former members except Nominet have reunited in a new very similar sounding band called Obsydians, evolving their sound into a new age. For now, they’ve only released a couple of tracks featuring various established guest vocalists. This year for the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Sybreed released a remastered version which included some re-recorded old tracks as well as some hitherto unreleased ones. So there’s definitely life still coursing in the veins of this machine. Time will tell where this goes.
Another such modern band that continues to impress me are the English trailblazers from The Raven Age. Young and hungry, these gents present an exquisite sound that features all the classics of contemporary metal – heavy chugging riffs, breakdowns, dramatic lyricism and a high energy. However, they steer clear of the metalcore realm and play a much more melodic sound that focuses more heavily on a dark yet uplifting sound and uses lots of awesome solos. They’ve had two singers over the years and both have these potent and memorable masculine voices and while steering clear of any screams or growls, offer an impactful and emotional delivery that always tugs at the heart strings. Also, one of their master guitarists and songwriters, George Harris, is the son of Steve Harris, bassist and key mastermind of the one and only Iron Maiden! So the apple definitely didn’t fall far from the tree and a shoutout from papa definitely helped them gain their initial traction. Make no mistake though, The Raven Age are no nepotism hire and their popularity is well earned. To me, they are one of the prime examples of what modern metal needs to be like and they manage to stand out from the crowd with ease. They will be one of the torchbearers to carry metal into the new generation.
Shifting gears now, I don’t think it’s a hot take to say that YouTubers generally don’t have the best track record when it comes to their musical forays. However, there are those that definitely earn the respect and one of my favourites are the duo called The Gentle Men. Lead by the one true Florida Man Charlie White aka MoistCr1TiKaL aka penguinz0 and fueled by New Zealand-based seasoned musician and producer Troy McKubre, two men who have actually never met in person! They usually play a modern, riff-driven metal style, polishing all the cliches to perfection, but they also dabble with other styles like hip hop, pop punk, electro or even the occasional acoustic ballad. All of it also stands out thanks to Cr1TiKaL’s trademark off-colour humour informing their lyrics and visuals. Musically, they are no joke however, each song is instantly catchy and memorable and the quality all across is superb. The rare moments where they become serious are made that much more poignant. And all done completely remotely! Just goes to show the power and potential of the internet. If these tracks were released by any other common band, they’d be chart topping hits, mark my words. Even now they sometimes are!
On that note, another such gem of YouTuber music comes from Cr1TiKaL’s friend Justin Whang. Mostly known for his humorous videos detailing weird and wacky tales from the annals of the internet, Whang is also one of the guitarists of the New York powerhouse Jynx. Nu metal revivalists by heart, mixing hard hitting metal riffs with hip hop and electronic elements to present their dark, brutally honest poetry, just like the good ol’ days. These guys are a fresh take on a beloved sound and consistently show how there is more to do with this approach. They also don’t treat it as a gimmick and fully embrace all the edge and cheese that comes with the territory to craft their bombastic adrenaline fuelled sound. There’s few acts out today quite as heart pumping as they are!
Let’s switch it up a bit now. Courtesy of my new gods from HEALTH, I recently also discovered the mighty SIERRA (someone tell these people how to turn off Caps Lock please). This French techno-maiden has risen to the occasion and entered herself into the pantheon of greats within the synthwave and darksynth sphere coming out of France recently, which is no easy task in the company of the likes of Perturbator, Carpenter Brut and many others. Her crushing tunes are heavy, dark, melodic, dancey and just plain cool!
In recent years, phonk has become a massive phenomenon and while it can be a bit all over the place, one name that has climbed to the top of the mountain is g3ox_em (don’t ask me where this name comes from, I wanted to know too but a secret it shall remain). In a chaotic and very memed on genre, his songs are exceptionally consistent in their quality. Perfectly capturing the hard hitting, heart pounding, muscle flexing style of phonk, decorating it with delicious synth melodies and also embracing the meme factor in a wholesome way. If you want some phonk and you want the good stuff, this is where it’s at!
Now for something completely different. I dropped some dungeon synth on you in the first bag of gems, so it feels appropriate to do so again. And what more adequate example than the mysterious project Castlesiege. Their first and still only album The Council of Trees was my first ever exposure to the genre and to this day, it remains my favourite. To me, this album is the perfect representation of what classic dungeon synth is. Awesome fantasy imagery, a distinctly retro synth-driven sound with calm yet catchy rhythms and great melodies and all of it carried by a plethora of classical fantasy instruments like flutes, lutes, fiddles, ocarinas, pan pipes and more, as well as samples of nature sounds, galloping horses, clashing armour and more. Castlesiege also fully embrace the retro approach and do their fullest to channel old 90s fantasy video games and the whole album feels like the soundtrack to a lost game. For a truly epic medieval atmosphere, few do it better.
This seems like a good transition point into the last segment of this blog in which I want to focus on a specific class of artist – one album wonders. For some reason, it’s a recurring theme for some bands to appear, release one God-tier album and then dip, so here’s just some I want to showcase. Actually, I already talked about one such example earlier this year in the form of prog metallists Control Denied, who’s existence was cut woefully short by the untimely passing of their mastermind Chuck Schuldiner. But I’ll spare you the details here, I already made a full blog on that legend where you can get the full story.
The first example for this blog are the chaotic duo known as Nailbomb. Formed by the Brazilian musical legend and countercultural icon Max Cavalera and English electro-metal experimentalist Alex Newport. The concoction they brewed is a fierce fusion of Cavalera’s classic hyper-aggressive thrash metal and angry anti-authoritarian lyrics but with a more percussive and mechanical riffing style and a distinct industrial edge courtesy of bountiful keyboards, samples and effects. Add the legendary drumming of Max’s brother Igor Cavalera and some additional guitar goodness from Fear Factory’s Dino Cazares and Sepultura’s Andreas Kisser and you have one violent slaughterfest. This project existed with the express purpose of being a true one off. They released one album, played one live show and then ended it all. However, their only creation Point Blank from 1994 remains one of the most iconic and talked about records in all of metal. Like a comet, they swooped into the atmosphere, burned brighter than the Sun for but a brief moment and then disappeared. Truly one of the most unique phenomenons in music.
A similar, but not so dramatic situation is the Norwegian supergroup called I, taking the record for the band with the shortest name I will ever mention in my blogs. They have a true all-star lineup, featuring former Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell aka TC King, lead virtuoso guitar master Arve Isdal aka Ice Dale of my favourites Enslaved, former Immortal drum machine Armagedda and of course, armed with his trusty axe and his mighty croak, the legendary goofball of Norwegian black metal, Immortal’s own Abbath! With this crew, the band forged a truly unique sound, mixing the classic riffing style and song structures of oldschool heavy metal and mixing it with the coarse guitar tone, tremolo picking, enveloping atmosphere and macabre lyricism of their favourite black metal. The end result is something truly special that is dark yet catchy, mysterious yet approachable and just an absolute blast! Abbath’s iconic voice also lends itself really well, having a real Udo Dirkschneider or Lemmy-esque vibe to his delivery, making it feel both aggressive and epic at the same time. It legitimately feels like you put Accept and Judas Priest on a diet of exclusively 90s Norwegian black metal and got them hooked on Norse folklore. Thus, their only album, Between Two Worlds from 2006 stands as an irreplaceable masterpiece full of anthems of majestic nature, epic battles and expansive fantasy. The only saving grace is that Abbath’s solo output afterwards has carried some of that mantle and his work in I has definitely informed his new sound. If you get to see him live, you may even get to hear the occasional I song reemerge from between worlds!
Lastly, we come to the enigmatic phenomenon that are Sweden’s Gorement. This group had a tumultuous history to say the least, going through more band names than some bands have had members and shifting their style in a radical new direction seemingly every year during the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, most of these attempts didn’t yield much of anything, with the exception of their stint under the Gorement moniker. In this form, after several demos and other tapes they released their first, last and only studio album, The Ending Quest in 1994 (Again? A special year it seems). A sadly befitting name, this record is a hidden gem that really more people need to know about, but that’s the whole point of this blog now, isn’t it? Establishing themselves as a pillar of the rising Swedish death metal scene, Gorement had everything the genre was known for polished to perfection so early in its history. Brutal riffs like a sweet buzzsaw, complex and aggressive drumming, violently masterful solos and vocals like a hungry monster. But what made them stand out was in fact their lack of brutality. In contrast to most of their contemporaries, they went for a more mystical and fantastical vibe with their visuals and lyrics. Soundwise, they had a very strong doom metal influence, slowing things down into a crawling atmospheric dirge on several occasions and they were also never shy of including much more melody into their songwriting too. The result is an album like no other that is universally regarded as a masterpiece to this day and it made the band an unexpected early pioneer of both death/doom and melodic death metal. It’s only such a shame they only captured lightning in a bottle once. Fun fact, their legacy sort of lives on as their logo’s design has inspired the logo of fellow Swedish death metal masters Bloodbath, who actually do continue to tear it up to this day!
So there you have it, a variety of rare stuff from my collection that can’t fill a full blog, but definitely deserve to be talked about more. Like I said in the beginning, the meaning of life to me is that life and the world exists to be experienced and just staying in one place is a waste to me. So I hope I’ve encouraged you to find something new, not just from this blog but all of them, and through these things, you’ve been inspired to embark on a new adventure. As this year approaches its conclusion, I happily reflect on all the things I’ve done, seen and talked about over the year. Gotta say, I can say with confidence that I practice what I preach and that I lived life by my stated principles. But, I’m not quite done yet. We still have some more before we party into the night, only to begin the next journey afterwards. Stay tuned and see you again soon!
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