CD Review: Ways. - Watching From Afar EP (2016)

In short a hardcore EP with a clear aim: to bring in fresh elements to a well known genre. Ways. carefully thought out their songs and created a listening experience both being familar and surprising alltogether.

Short Introduction

Ways. are a rock / metal / alternative band from Paris, France. In April the band released their debut EP Watching From Afar. The band first came to my attention when I saw their video for the song "Misty Hope" which made me more than looking forward to their first record. A great track and teaser to this EP.

The cover of "Watching From Afar", (c) by Ways. , used with kind permission

Summary

Listening to this very first release of Ways. quickly will let you identify it has a music of the hardcore genre. The typical elements like the harsh vocals and the strong and strict song structures are easily identifiable.

But it's also clear after a short time that the band ever had the idea in their mind to give new impulses to this. There are hacked riffs in there as well as timing variations ("My Blue Stain"), you'll be confronted with silence packed in the loud message of "Misty Hope" just to reach a hardcore half-ballad with "Something to say..." and come to the end with "Twenty First Sectuary" which closes the release with the classic hardcore style but mixed up with a slight fun-riff. I think you'll be surprised to hear how this sounds but it will leave you with a smile and the good feeling behind.

If you still prefer to stick to some old hardcore sounds don't worry: the second track "As A Duty" offers this so the old core of the genre is not forgotten from this band at all.

Player / Purchase-Link


The EP comes around as a pay what you want offer on Bandcamp. Sure you can pick it up for free but please keep in mind that young bands need a push at the start so they can progress further. If you help them out with a few bucks who knows how their next release may sound like? Or how the tracks sound live? You can help to make this happen by giving a amount of your choice.

Other places such as Spotify, iTunes and Google Play can also be used to stream and buy the "Watching From Afar" EP.

Contact Data

Ways. have some nice social outlets up and running out there, you can choice between Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

80s Thrashers Aggravator stream full album "Populace Destructor"

Do you often browse through your record collection and find yourselves picking the old school thrash albums from back in the 80s? The production on these albums was often done in a much more dirty and rough way. The songs were harder and directer, this feeling of shred coming directly from the speakers was far more present then it is these days.

If you stick to albums like Overkills "Taking Over" then this album "Populace Destructor" from american old school thrashers Aggravator is for you. Listening to it this album took me way back to the time when I discovered this genre and started to liked it more and more. Besides the mentioned reference to Overkill the sound is also influenced by early Sepultura, Kreator and Slayer. Aggravator proudly shared the stage with such gods like King Diamond, Toxic Holocaust, Exodus, Incantation, Suffocation, Autopsy... among others!

(c) by Aggravator, used with kind permission

The cool thing is that we can let you all out there have a listen to the full album right here, so enjoy some classic thrash now.


The album was originally released already in 2014 but has been re-released on 10th October 2015 by Dead Center Productions to extend the distribution on the European side, and to reach all the fans who could miss this piece of thrash. You can buy the full album from the webshop of the band or have a look on the label's Facebook presence.

Check out the full new Exodus album online

Finally Exodus have released a brand-new album entitled "Blood in, blood out" . The album can be seen as a sort of gathering together of some of the old-school heads of the Bay Area Thrash scene.

The song "Salt the wound" features orginal member Kirk Hammett on guitars who contributed a guitar solo to this track. Chuck Billy also took the time to give his outstanding voice to the record with the vocals for the track "BTK". Exodus-guitarist Gary Holt currently is also busy with recording the new Slayer album. However Exodus will be on tour for the rest of the year, playing shows with Suicidal Tendencies. You can find the proper dates at the tourdates section of the bands website.

Yahoo music has been given the honour to stream the full record already in advance. So if you'd like to check out the album before buying it, jump over to the Yahoo Blog entry and give the record a listen.

Full new Threshold album For The Journey available for streaming

So it's nearly one week left until Progmetal veterans Threshold will put out their newest record "For The Journey". I guess a lot of you guys out there can't wait to hear it. The band already released one full songs as a stream and two track-by-track commentary videos to give a idea of the new album.

But now they've given the british Prog Mag the honour to set up a prelistening stream of the full album on the megazines website. So without any further ado head over to them to find out how the new music sounds.

In support of this event the band is going to tour europe this fall. Here are the tourdates:


24.10.2014 Bucharest (Maximum Rock Festival) RO
31.10.2014 Vosselar (Biebob) BE
01.11.2014 Hamburg (Markthalle) DE
02.11.2014 Bremen (Tivoli) DE
03.11.2014 Flensburg (Roxy) DE
04.11.2014 Berlin (K17) DE
06.11.2014 Aschaffenburg (Colos Saal) DE
07.11.2014 Weert (Bosuil) NL
08.11.2014 Essen (Turock) DE
09.11.2014 Zoetermeer (Boerderij) NL
11.11.2014 Ludwigsburg (Rockfabrik) DE
12.11.2014 Èragny (Covent Garden Studios) FR
14.11.2014 Rheine (Hypothalamus) DE
15.11.2014 Aarau (Kiff) CH
16.11.2014 Brescia (Circolo Cologny) IT
17.11.2014 Bratislava (Randal Club) SK
18.11.2014 München (Feierwerk) DE
20.11.2014 London (O2 Islington Academy) GB
21.11.2014 Chester (The Live Rooms ) GB
22.01.2015 Miami, FL (70,000 Tons Of Metal) US


Here are some more details about the upcoming record:

"For The Journey" is the successor to the band's 2012 release "March Of Progress" and was produced by guitarist Karl Groom and Richard West at Thin Ice Studios in England. The album was mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox in Finland, while the artwork was created by Polish surrealism artist Leszek Bujnowski, which the band found on the internet. The track listing is as follows:

1. Watchtower On The Moon
2. Unforgiven
3. The Box
4. Turned To Dust
5. Lost In Your Memory
6. Autumn Red
7. The Mystery Show
8. Siren Sky
Bonus tracks:
9. I Wish I Could - available on the digipak, vinyl and download versions
10. Lost In Your Memory (Acoustic Version) - available on the vinyl and download versions

CD Review: Ventenner - Distorture

Note: If you have a own band or project that you think might fit in well here for a review or as a presentation / introduction please drop me a line or two in a E-Mail. Please see my profile for my E-Mail adress. I appreciate new suggestions very much so please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm also interested in band news / updates so please keep the stuff coming. Thanks!

If you're having troubles writing in English please send me a E-Mail in your preferred language or use the free Google Translator to transfer your message to English. I also use that tool, it's of course not perfect but I think it will mostly likely work out for our purposes.

Short Introduction

Ventenner are a industrial metal band. There music can be said to be have some similarities to Depeche Mode. To be precise I think back of the old Depeche Mode, meaning mostly the Ultra album plus Music for the masses but without the party feelings in them.

That's where elements from Nine Inch Nails come into play.
The music has a lot of dark elements in them which are cleverly put inside of the songs. So most of the tracks have a very emotional, atmospheric style in them but inside of the mostly darker parts there's often a glimpse of light in there. That's where the catchy melodies and hooks can be found. Some of the songs you'll fastly won't forget anymore once you've heard them. "Distorture" is the bands second effort, following up to the first record entitled "‘This Is the Reason" from 2012.

(c) Ventenner, used with kind permission

Short Summary / Player / Purchase Link

Industrial metal ain't everybody's taste and so it was for a long time for me. I disliked all the working with technical effects and the slowliness of the music. But as you walk through life things change and so did my music preferences. I would like to encourage everybody to check out this album. It is great and it's not only cold, electronic music but moreover has Ventenner made sure to put in hand made music that comes directly from the band themselves.

Check out the tracks "Wave" and "Six Blood" to quickly get a idea what the band is all about. The rest of the album takes much more time but it pays off once you give it a chance.

Just check out the stream below to find out if the album meets your choice of musical style. The download comes around for 10 Euro through the bandcamp page of the bands record company Sonic Fire Records. You'll get 60 Minutes of music in the format of your choice including MP3, FLAC etc. for your money that leave more than enough space for listening to it several times.


In support of the latest output the band is going to do some shows in England. Make sure to go if you can make it to one of their shows:

18th October – London, Electrowerkz w/ Hanzel Und Gretyl
30th November – London, O2 Academy w/ Orgy

The band has a own website http://www.ventenner.com/ up and running where you can find out more about the band. Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Ventenner also offers a great way to stay up to date with all the latest happening in the Ventenner universe.

Track-by-Track Review

01. Rise
Slowly we start back coming to our senses. A very good intro and start into the album. A constant melody underlayed with different drum beats that change during the track. Some rough guitars towards the end and much distortion introduce the band as they pick up there instruments to start playing the songs of Distorture...

02. Six Blood
A very catchy one with a constant drum track and fine instrumentation. You can easily imagine the people dancing to the song in the clubs. The chorus comes with a lot of loud vocals and a bit of screaming while the rest is kept in a haunting but calm spoken soft form. It's the variations of the instruments that are cleverly placed in this piece of music. The end comes with some more electronic effects and vocal screams and fades away. The video for Six Blood I talked about some time earlier fitts to the mood the song provides.

03. Wave
Love this! It's what I would call a song that leaves a long lasting impression once heard. While the rhythm is once again very stable the cold guitars and crawling vocals come close to you to explode with a emotional explosion. Some rhthym change at the middle of the song with a cold, empty and lonely sounding keyboard melody makes the earcatcher perfect. The end mixes up all the elements of the previous parts to leave you at the end with the keyboard melody. Once you hear this you'll surely want to have a  repeat. I've just done pressing that button while typing these lines. :-)

04. Unaffected
A faster track of the album! Drums open up this one along with some faster vocals. The refrain introduces the variable voice of the vocalist - much more than you might've thought from the previous songs. A slower intermezzo with rough guitars at the middle of Unaffected along with vocals give you some time to breath before a more clear part come in with some guitar improvisations. A hard attack of lyrics like a machine-gun takes us back to the style of the beginnig. The end comes fast and abrupt.

05. Distorture
The title-song comes as a very compact instrumental with a mixture of electronic music and heavy guitars. A dark and edgy piece of music. Could be some sort of music for a film. Maybe some action movie with a dystopic setting or ending.

06. Skin Ritual
The traditionell constant rhythm opens up this one. A slow tune with soft guitar vibes. Overall it contines the dark feelings of the previous title-song of the album. Like a flower this song finally opens up towards the end to show all the beauty it has to offer. The refrain is soft and feels comfortable but the end comes fast.

07. Begin Again
Spacy guitars open up this instrumental before some marching drums and percussion join in and the sound grows a bit more rude. Some soft keyboards can be heard more in the background and give in a melodic touch that lead the direction and take over toward the end of it all. The last seconds are a bit strange. Some keyboard effects if I'm not mistaken.

08. Metacell
A fast rhythm open up. One of the faster tracks with a danceable feeling once again. Loud vocals in the first row along with some effects. The last part is much slower with more edgy vocals and some guitar riffs close this short song.

09. Fallout
Majestic keyboards in the beginning. A change once again to a slow part with lots of screaming vocals. Much calmer vocals in the next part before the screaming part repeats  for a short while. Keyboards all over some more moments at the end before it all abruptly is gone in silence...

10. Cast
Constant drums along with keyboards and dominating high pitched vocals dominate the soundscape. Repeating keyboards and the same structure as in the beginning continue the path before some whispered words point towards a eyecatchy keyboard melody. The vocals are something special. Long stretched vocals lines with some effect but perfectly fitting each line to the last note of each melody. It has a beauty of it's very own style.

11. Undone
A slow atmospheric start - soft notes and vocals touch the listeners ears. As if you paint a picture with music so it'a bit with this song. The colors and forms vary as the song goes forward. A dreamingly landscape with different moods we pass through in my ears.

12. Shade
Broken drums and fragments of melodies form a "Shade".  The bass guitar sound is something special giving it a extra note that keeps running through my ears. Beautifull vocals slowly add to this outstanding song. Stronger vocals in the last third open up for more louder and harder sound fragments. The soft keyboard notes from which the song may originate close the 12. track of "Distorture".

13. House of Ten
Raw guitars are the main element this song is made of with vocals and drums of the same. Once again the theme of the song changes and a soft part comes in. It's the same theme then in the beginning but without all of the hard distortion in it. The song fades away at the end. Hopefully we will hear more from this band in the future. I would like to know how they evolve even further. A lot of great music on this album.

CD Review: Atropos Project - Equator

Here we go with a new section on the Metalunderdogs Blog. I'd like to write down my thoughts on new releases that have been recently put out. If you have a own band or project that you think might fit in well here please do drop me a line or two here in the comments section or please see my profile for my E-Mail adress. I do appreciate new suggestions very much!

Today we start out with the actual album from Atropos Project called "Equator". It's a instrumental Progmetal one man project that is centered around John Quarles. He has written, performed, recorded, and produced all the stuff that can be heard on the album. On some of the tracks he has additional help with guitars, keyboards, Pedal steel, dobro and slide guitars from other musicians. John is mostly a self-taught musician who started out with drums, later going over to guitars and even having taken some lessons on the piano.

As for the structure of the review: I will first give a short summary of the album along with a embedded player so for all of you who dislike reading text from screens you can shortly go over and have a quick check on the content. Afterwards I will write down a track by track review showing you my thoughts on the single tracks.

Short Summary / Player / Download and CD Purchase Links

No doubt it's a great album. If you're into Progmetal and like instrumental songs I suggest you to check this out. I know no one like's to be compared to something but to give you a idea on what this is all about imagine the instrumental tracks from bands like Dream Theater, Vanden Plas, Threshold and the like along with a more straight forward songwriting. The songs are very progressive and do show the beauty and diversification of this musical style but always remain followable and don't loose thereselves into too complicated structures. They always give you the chance to take a breathe after a "hard attack" so your emotions and thoughts can sort freshly giving you new energy to go for the next push-on forward.

The album can be streamed for free so it's no hidden catch. Take the time and check out "F.A.C." or "Deadfall" for a very quick glance on what's this band is all about. Take some time to give the blasting "Spiralling" a chance as well as the slower tracks "A Curious Trip" and "Drudgery".
The album can be purchased as a download for only 8 dollar at the BANDCAMP SITE. There you can quickly get the album in high quality FLAC (File losless Audio Converter) format as well as in high MP3 format. John has also put together a beautifull CD version of the album so if you prefer to buy the album as a classic Compact disc, you can do so also via the BANDCAMP SITE. 
For all those of you who do prefer itunes and Amazon, just click on the site names to go to the direct download pages. Moreover CD baby is one more chance to get a copy of the album.
If you want to follow Atropos Project, you can do so on facebook or check out the band's website for further links and info.

Update 2014/11/03: The prices have been reduced! The download is now available for 4 Dollar as well as the Compact Disc that goes out for the same price but you have to add shipping and handling for the physical copy of course.

Track by track Review:

Before reading: don't let your enjoyment be spoiled. I will talk about some of the details of each track. Discovering music on you own might be much more fun. If you don't want to know before listening I suggest you to let the music do the talking instead of reading this.

"Inceptions Promise"
The slow intro track takes you away from reality to the start of a musical journey. Set up with clear guitars in a very own style it plays a bit around in the hight notes to take over to the first full song of the album.

"F.A.C."
A open and direct straight forward song taking you inside of the album. Shortly after the opening sequence a first solo part with a very own styled solo section. Very rhytmic track, lot's of variations in tempo and soft change over's. It show's also a very own trademark of Atropos Project: very own style and interpretation that give's the straight arrangement a remarkable own note.

"Deadfall"
The hardest track of the album in my eyes. Raw, direct and unfiltered first riff with dirtly crash cymbals. After the hard entrance a softer part with slower rhythm and piano playing awaids the listener. The permanent constant playing of the guitar while the piano does a little duell with the guitars take's it back to the harder intro riff. Finally a release at the end with a very straight forward riff. Short silence. Then a short hard riff. The piano take's to the end of this nearly ten minute long song. A jamming session in the end repeating the piano theme slightly from the middle section. A open end fading out of a great track. 

"Spiralling"
A song that opens up while a ghostly-feeling riff that gives you chills. It's followed up by a more complex Rhythm Section, that leads into another part underlayed with Keyboards. Sort of style I like very much. After some jamming finally a blast killer riff at the end that free's the compressed energy the previous parts did build up.

"A Curious Trip"Sort of very special track. It starts very slow and relaxed with some Piano. You feel lost in deep thoughts when listening to this. The end offers a very, very complex instrumentation while the bass keeps repearting a montone riff. The end comes very abrupt and leaves you behind with a surprise (a good one).

"And...Lift"
This one show's a lot of jazz elements with lot's of variations. The riff is very strong and pushes you hard in the forward direction. A lot of solo part's in here. In the end part a riff that open's up the song like a flower and shows several styles of this riff and the melody.

"Suspiria"
We start into the song with a slow section playing clean guitars that is seldom to find these days. Warmly welcomed by me. The rhythm builds a bridge to the main part of the song. Guitars playing at a high tone on this one. Powerfull guitars with a catchy riff and several repeatings then - silence. After a short break another power riff with a very straight ending.

"Drudgery"
Again a clear intro with a touch of sadness hanging in the air. The jam session that follow's leads into a good power riffing. The rhythm is very crawling and has lots of modern elements in there. The end takes you back to the starting intro melody and the end is soft and let's you slowly fade away.

"New Leaf"
A cool drum section opening up to clear guitars. Once more we go with a power riff while the drums keep being very dominating on this track. The bridge is a drum fill going over to a new pattern opening up to a piano section alonng with fitting beats. Some more jazzy elements and a small jam section go over to the final part of the album. After a short power riffing arrangement the CD comes to a end with a piano section putting a very decent ending to a strong first release of a project we hopefully will hear more of in the future.

Fresh stuff from Stratovarius,Heaven shall burn and Kamelot up for listening

While I'm typing this the snow is falling outside. The perfect weather to enjoy some fine music. Happily nowadays a lot of bands are putting up their new stuff online for listening so you can check them out before you might buy them. Stratovarius just recently did put out their actuall release called "Nemesis". I'm listenig to it while writing this one down. Sounds like the band did tape some very cool tracks which tend more into the powerfull direction. The last record I've heard from them was "Polaris" which turned out great for me but had surprisingly a lot of slow songs on it. So head over here and find out how the new album is.

Heaven shall burn are quite a different kind of music. Their sound is more set in the heavy, raw and hardcore direction. The new album will be called "VETO" and the band has now set up one song called ‘Land Of The Upright Ones’ for free download. There just one thing you need to do before downloading: solve the sound puzzle. Will you solve this quest? Try your luck here. 

The last band in this little round up are Kamelot, a much underrated symphonic powermetal band. Their newest album has been released autumn 2012 and was called "Silverthorn". They recently released two single's from that album and will follow this path with another single called 'Falling Like The Fahrenheit'. Since lyric Videos have become very popular these days the band has decided to set up a proper one for this track. Judging from the lyrics it looks like someone lost someone who he/she was in love with or what do you think? 

Mediascope: Helloween, Avantasia and Black Metal movie

Wow, the new year has just begun and there are already lot's of new things online that you can check out freely. For example german metal legend "Helloween" has recently put out their newest studio album called "Straight out of hell". In cooperation with the biggest daily german newspaper "Bild" the band has set up a stream of the entire album right here.

The head of Avantasia is Tobias Sammet. With their last show the band played at the Wacken Open Air 2011 the project was officially laid to rest but Tobias Sammet felt afterwards that their was so much left unsaid and music still in his head that he had to go back and start the project once again. Actually the recordings are already finished for a new album called "THE MYSTERY OF TIME". It is set for release in March 2013. The tracklist will be:

01.  Spectres
02.  The Watchmakers' Dream
03.  Black Orchid
04.  Where Clock Hands Freeze
05.  Sleepwalking
06.  Savior In The Clockwork
07.  Invoke The Machine
08.  What's Left Of Me
09.  Dweller In A Dream
10.  The Great Mystery

A first trailer revealing that Michael Kiske will also be on board for some guest vocals has been put out. There will be in fact a big amount of guest stars on the album since Biff Byford,Bruce Kulick, Russell Gilbrook (Uriah Heep) Arjen Lucassen (Ayeron), Joe Lynn Turner and Ronnie Atkins have been confirmed to do guest appeareances of the album. In addition you can also have a ear on some snippets of the album by checking out the trailer below.

There are more preview videos available, just check out the Avantasia youtube channel to see them.

Least for today is the stream of a full movie that had it's premiere on the Sundance film festival. It's called "Black Metal". The story is set around the main question that ask's, if and in which way are musicians responsible for the deeds of their fans? The story tells the story out of the perspective of a vocalist of a Black Metal band who has to deal with a fan driven deed of strong brutality.

Hear the full new Tenacious D album for free!

I talked about this great band some time ealier in this blog. By now the new album is getting closer and the band is so kind to give everybody not only a short preview on the album but instead has put the full album online for streaming. So without any further ado here you go with a good time (hopefully):


In addition to this great thing, there's also a video for the title-track up for watching.
Tenacious D -- Rize Of The Fenix - MyVideo

Hear a new track from Linkin Park's upcoming album

Linkin Park like to experiment with new sounds and arrangements to give hard music a new direction. They've put the track of the their first single "Burn it down" online and you can check it out directly here:



Seems like the band more than ever trys to go new ways. Well, I like it although I'm more of the old traditional style in Heavy Metal Music. At least I like that they put in emotions and various structures that break up the old style to give more atmosphere the chance to breathe. Let' see what the album will be all about. The tracklist for "Living Things" is as follows:

1. LOST IN THE ECHO
2. IN MY REMAINS
3. BURN IT DOWN
4. LIES GREED MISERY
5. I'LL BE GONE
6. CASTLE OF GLASS
7. VICTIMIZED
8. ROADS UNTRAVELED
9. SKIN TO BONE
10. UNTIL IT BREAKS
11. TINFOIL
12. POWERLESS

Charred walls of the damned

Nowadays a lot of new bands are coming up. Often these are a result of a teaming-up of well known musicians.

Charred walls of the damned are one of these. This band features Tim 'Ripper' Owens (ex Judas Priest) on vocals,while Richard Christy (ex Death) has done the drums. You can check out their first album for free at the site of the german metal magazine Rock Hard:

http://www.rockhard.de/megazine/praesentationen/charred-walls-of-the-damned.html

For more info on this band go to:

http://www.metalblade.com/cwotd