O’Brother – Disillusion

O’Brother delivered the album of the coming autumn, although it was already released back in August. Maybe that’s the reason why I only discovered this little depressive piece of prog just a few days ago.

A very timid fade-in welcomes the listener in the first song before merging into a psychedelic and dark blues song, with a touch of Muse vocals. Disillusion is a very versatile album, sometimes hard to digest, sometimes just beautiful and melancholic. The album probably won’t be everybody’s darling after a first listen, but as the run-throughs amass, the structure behind all this melodic post-hardcore, post rock and progressive tastes becomes more and more catchy.

The LP is a permanent stop and go, it sometimes attacks you from behind, sometimes even annoys you to death, and sometimes just grooves towards Armageddon. The bass in Context chases you through dark woods while the guitar gives you saving signs from a very long distance. The vocals vary between warmness, a depressive version of Matt Bellamy and even become too “90s” from time to time, which is forgivable considering the overall image.

Doom and sludge are logical consequences of the atmosphere created on Disillusion. Perilous Love combines nearly everything mentioned above; to describe it banally: this song just thrashes you in every possible way and speed. The following Path of Folly delivers a calming and slower song and gives you a moment to grasp at something for the first time during the first listening.

Oblivion is a 9 minute boulder changing its directions from straight forward post-hardcore to progressive madness and calming down for almost 4 minutes before reviving and collapsing in pain. The title song again sums up the whole dark soul of this autumn storm with its threatening beginning, its dangerous bass, a beautiful wall of sound and its brilliant change into a grooving prog song after 4 minutes. If I had to just pick one song on this album, it would be this one.

The way through this forest ends after 54 minutes. You may enjoy reentering it a few more times.

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County

This is my first time ever reviewing a movie about aliens. Out of the long list of human-invented monsters and entities, I find our fabricated image of aliens to be the least scary and/or interesting, so I don’t seek out stories involving them. I am tired of seeing the same old pale inverted triangle heads parading around the earth with their long limbs, technologically advanced spaceships and shady intents. I have yet to see a movie that deals with them in an exciting way and doesn’t use the worn-out stereotype of the extraterrestrial tyrant with supernatural powers.

Sadly, Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County does not challenge our idea of extraterrestrial life, either. But it did capture my attention because it is a straight to TV movie that came out one year before The Blair Witch Project and was marketed as real footage, as well. (By the by, the fact that this actually worked is hilarious. Aside from the fairly obvious movie mistakes, like glaring audio/visual asynchrony and the like, the makers included the alien actors in the credits.)

The film, which features interviews with all sorts of “professionals” in between the found footage, is told through the lens of a kid who wants to document his family’s thanksgiving get-together with his new camera. They’re all having a medicore time until the three brothers go out to check what’s wrong with the electricity. They notice strange lights in the distance, decide to investigate and end up witnessing a strange ritual performed by aliens in front of their spaceship. Things go downhill from there.

The acting struck me as substandard and very distinctly amateurish (except for the little girl, who managed to unsettle the ever-living hell out of me), which shattered hopes of the film feeling real and dangerous for me right off the bat. As entertainment, “okay” is the word I would use to describe it in a nutshell. Truth be told, this is far from the worst outcome. I actually do think it is suspenseful, and the alien intruders have some pretty creative methods to mess with the family. The psychological manipulations, especially towards the end, are seriously unnerving. I’d love to spoil a specific scene here, but I’ll keep it as vague as possible by revealing that people end up putting their tongues where they don’t belong, and it leaves you… puzzled. There are very few jump scares, which I appreciate, as well. The film tries to build to a climax of terror by using tension and subtly disturbing occurrences.

I’d say that watching Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County can serve as a nice Friday evening pastime for found footage/suspense/alien fans. The movie is not groundbreaking or challenging in any way, but it’s one of the more tolerable alien flicks I’ve seen, if that counts for anything coming from an alien flick avoider.

Scar The Martyr – Scar The Martyr


As you might have noticed from some of my previous reviews, I follow everything Slipknot and its members do almost religiously. Which is why I was very delighted when I learned that Joey Jordison, their drummer, started a new project called Scar The Martyr earlier this year. Not much was known by then and first studio previews left me quite underwhelmed since there was no real structure in the various clips. Fast forward a couple of months and we see the release of the self-titled album, to which I’ll give my two cents today.

The opener Dark Ages immediately sucked me in with its heavy rhythm and I saw my bopping head without even realizing it. The whole thing threw me back to my early teenage years where nu metal was at its peak and I slowly started getting into heavier music. Let me just take a step back here and say that STM is in no way a cheap copy of the “classic” bands, but instead they’ve added several industrial elements to their sound, which brings a refreshing note to the fourteen songs.

The record is chock-full of, for lack of a better word, heavy-ass riffs and super melodic fast-paced solos which leaves close to new room for a rest. Just the way I like it, basically. The drumming is rather basic, if you consider who is sitting behind the drum kit, but it perfectly drives the ensemble to where it wants to go. However, I do have to nag a little bit and say that quite a few songs start out the, almost, exact same way with a rhythm on the toms…it isn’t very innovative but it’s not too obnoxious. Keyboards are also present, but rather to accentuate the music than being put in the spotlight.

The next major selling point, which seems to be the recurring theme of 2013’s albums, are the vocals. While the rest of the band is composed of relatively known musicians, the singer is the rather unknown Henry Derek…but the man can sing and scream like no tomorrow. His clean vocals are so ridiculously melodic that I can never wait for the choruses, where they are mostly used, to give me goosebumps. I might be a bit off here, but in certain spots he reminds me of Mike Patton during the The Real Thing era. The screams don’t have to hide behind those of any other famous loudmouth’s either and especially the duality between the two is just breath-taking.

The only downside to this album is the length, because at seventy-five minutes total the record loses a bit of its effect. I know it sounds silly but I’m convinced that if it had been at slightly under fifty minutes, it would have left you leaving for more instead of completely saturating you. The unbelievable thing is that there are two more, digital, versions: one with a playtime of ninety-two minutes and one with slightly less than two hours. It’s a bit of a dumb nitpick but it was the only real thing that bothered me, so I had to share it with you. Nevertheless, I definitely recommend this album to anyone who wants a refreshing throwback to a long-forgotten genre. For more info, go visit the band’s Facebook page and be sure to check the song below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl_ej-OupkI]

Sipping – 49.25/6.20


France is known for many things. Like losing wars, being romantic and Louis de Funès but metal is not a big export it can claim. While they do have a handful of really good and even well-known bands that made it internationally, they are mostly know musically for their pop and rap. Today’s review is about a nu metal band from the hexagon: Sipping, who released their debut EP 49.25/6.20 earlier this year.

As mentioned before, the sextet plays nu metal in its “oldest” form…complete with rap vocals, screams and scratching. There is one thing that does stand out though: they sing in French. While that makes it more difficult to appeal to international audiences, it is a distinctive feature which I welcome, since it’s rarely done these days.

The production is solid but not quite where I’d like it to be, since, at least in my opinion, the genre gets most of its momentum from a strong sound. It is, however, not to the point where it’s impossible to listen to, so don’t dismiss it before you gave it a listen. The drums are nothing you’ve never heard before but well played, delivering an appropriate base for the rest of the music. Guitar wise it’s nothing to write home about but sufficient to not make you run away during these eighteen minutes.

The rap vocals generally follow the same rhythm without many surprises, and the occasional screams could be a bit more frequent for my taste. The same goes for the vocals as for the rest of the six tracks: not bad, but nothing spectacular. The intro deserves a special mention since it features Nyan Cat…whether that is positive or negative is up to you; I liked it.

All in all, this EP did not blow me away but I can see what the band tried to do and I welcome it. The general consensus is that nu metal is dead, but attempts like these to revive it always make me feel nostalgic and I can’t completely dismiss it. If you get a chance to see the band live, as I did when I discovered them, I would recommend that to the recorded version but if you’re hungry for some new-old stuff: be my guest. More information can be found on the band’s Facebook page and you can make your own impression by listening to the song below, which oddly enough sounds better than the version on the EP I got.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF9r9mFHW1M]

Plan 9 from Outer Space


The (film) world surely does not need another extensive Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) review and that’s exactly why I won’t do one. The following few lines simply include some subjective thoughts and views about the mother of all “The worst movie ever made” films.

First off: there is no way in hell that Plan 9 from Outer Space is the worst picture ever made. Even though it commands the top slot in most of the “worst movie” lists throughout the internet, it does not occur in my personal top ten and I am not even sure if it would appear in my top twenty. Why? Because it entertained me. I didn’t expect an intellectual, social drama about life and death with a multi-million budget, directed by Woody Allen. I expected a b-movie science- fiction thriller film which I hoped would amuse me for the next 80 minutes, and it did.

For the few among you who haven’t seen this classic: Edward D. Wood Jr.’s Plan 9 from Outer Space is about Aliens who try to contact the human beings on earth because they fear that the human race will destroy the whole universe by creating a doomsday bomb. In order to get the desired attention, the aliens implement Plan 9: resurrect 3 dead people, aim to create chaos and plan to kill humanity in order to save the universe.

Ok, Plan 9 brims over with movie mistakes, the plot is cohesionless and consists of inconsistencies. The dialogues are just damn brilliant and most of the time make absolutely no sense. The budget should have been around the price of a Tata Nano involved in an accident. The special effects are antic, even for the year 1959, and the requisites probably come from the local toy department. The acting is lousy and even the “old” silent Lugosi stock-footage, which the story is built around, is far below average.

To be honest, the movie is a disaster on every level, BUT it fascinates me and I couldn’t have cared less about all this cinematic incompetence mentioned above. Plan 9 is an amiable alien/zombie Z-Movie made by people who loved cinema. You can argue about their talent and they may have had no cinematic knowledge but you can’t deny the enthusiasm and the movie’s charm.

I kinda love it. Watch the movie for free:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5DZhDH8eew]

The Majestic Unicorns From Hell – Valde Purgamentum


“Holy fuck!”…those were the first words that came to my mind after I finished my very first listen-through of The Majestic Unicorns From Hell‘s debut album Valde Purgamentum. And I could probably end my review here, and have said everything that needs to be said. But, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t at least elaborate a tiny bit further. So without further ado, let’s dive into this thirteen track beast.

The dynamic quartet from Luxembourg plays instrumental … I’ll just say “music”. Because trying to categorize their sound is close to impossible, since there are elements of thrash, black, death, industrial, blues, groove, funk, jazz and pretty much every other genre you can imagine. While it might sound super chaotic on paper, it’s just that: chaos, but of the perfectly structured kind which simply won’t let you go.

This feat is achieved by the incredibly high musicianship of all four members, who completely master their instruments and then add another layer of ingenuity. I hereby challenge you to count the seemingly endless amount of nifty drum fills alone. The variety of the different riffs and licks in the guitar department is just as insane and in no way has to hide behind the man with the sticks.

While I generally prefer music with vocals, of which there are none on here except a few spoken lines by one of the best exports from New Zealand since the LOTR trilogy, the Unicorns managed to captivate me with their sheer balls-to-the-wall, dial to eleven attitude. I can guarantee that these thirty-six minutes will not disappoint you, if you don’t have a pre-existing heart condition…in which case I would advise caution.

To sum it up, I can safely say that Valde Purgamentum has made it to the top of my “music I never want to have sex to” list, for fear of dying. More seriously though: this record is one of my personal surprises of the year and I strongly recommend giving it a go. More info can be found on their Facebook page and by listening to the song below, which is not a mix from the final album. If I still haven’t managed to convince you, stop by Decibel in Luxembourg this Friday and make up your own opinion since the band will be releasing their CD there.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6_2yffUUs]

The Devil Wears Prada – 8:18


Almost exactly two years after releasing their critically acclaimed Dead Throne, the Ohio-based band The Devil Wears Prada is back with their fifth record 8:18. I remember when I heard the first track off it, I was slightly underwhelmed since it sounded very generic and I was hoping for something more. But since I never judge an album by a single song, I optimistically gave it a try and it turns out that I was not disappointed.

The quintet stays true to its melodic metalcore roots and manages to capture me from the first second of the forty-four minutes to the last. In comparison to the previous endeavor, which was a rather straight-forward neckbreaker, you’ll find that they’ve decided to employ more melodious passages again. But do not fear, the heavy parts are, in my opinion, heavier than the Zombie EP, which is arguably their heaviest output.

The one thing that amazes me the most though, is the fact that the entire thirteen songs have a certain gloomy feel to them which is very well accentuated by the clean vocals during choruses and the keyboard track. The guitar front has also improved, resulting in more technical riffs and a higher recognition value. The drumming remains at its usual high level, with a hint more groove than previously.

The most interesting fact about 8:18, to me, is that the unclean vocals are deliberately as untouched as possible in order to convey a performance similar to a live experience. This adds a very “real” feel and helps in making this record their most impressive one to date.

It’s safe to say that this album shouldn’t be missed by fans of the genre, but also skeptics should give it a chance…it might change your mind. To keep up with the band, visit their Facebook page and don’t hesitate to listen to the song below.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27mTRnqMzxM]