Architects – Daybreaker


I’m pretty sure that everyone that is at least a bit into metalcore has heard of Architects before as they have managed to establish themselves in the scene quite well, at the latest in 2009 with their album Hollow Crown.

In 2011 they released The Here And Now which was quite different from the aforementioned album: a lot more melodic and “softer”, but still a very powerful record nevertheless. Their latest endeavor Daybreaker however is very reminiscent of the 2009 released record.

In terms of instruments this means that it is a bit more complex and definitely heavier. Great, almost mathcore-ish, riffs are found througout the whole 42 minutes.

Sam Carter’s vocals are, who would have thought (wink wink), at their usual high level. This guy just manages to deliver on all levels, be it super clean vocals or very emotion-ladden screams. You just believe everything he sings.

Then there are 3 guest appearances on vocals: Jon Green of Deez Nuts, Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon and Drew York of Stray From The Path. The one that sticks out the most to me is Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon on the song Even If You Win, You’re Still A Rat. This is, of course, mostly due to the fact that I’m a big follower of BMTH but also because he sounds very different to the way he does on his albums. This might be because it’s mixed differently or it might be a foreshadowing of THEIR upcoming album.

Lyrically the whole record is very sociocritical and songs like These Colours Don’t Run are a prime example of that. And, because of the vocalist’s talent, you can actually make out about 90% of them without even looking at the booklet.

All in all I can only say that this album is, in some ways, a step back but not really in a bad way: their previous record might have been too much of a change for the band and this feels much more architectural. See what I did there?)

Be sure to check them out on Facebook and listen to the song below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHHJF2cUwyY]

Batoru rowaiaru (Battle Royale)

2 weeks ago I went to Turku/Finland to participate in a workshop which dealt with the very important and imminent subject of youth unemployment, its social-economical outcome, the vast variety of causes and the different possibilities of prevention. It was great to see how other countries (try to) tackle this subject and to discuss different point of views and ideas. When I came back my limited ultimate edition of Battle Royale just arrived and my first thoughts were that this movie would have been the ideal workshop opener in Turku.

For those who still do not know Kinji Fukasaku’s masterpiece, which bases on Kōshun Takami’s book, watch it and try to think beyond the simple brutality.

The story takes place in the turn of the millennium with dystopic Japan facing 15% of people being unemployed, a high rate of youth unemployment, poverty and criminality, in three words: an economical depression. In order to fight these circumstances on a political, social, ethical and moral level, a generation gap arises and the destructive adults, who have lost all their faith, don’t know how to help themselves as by creating the millennium education law (Battle Royale), a perverse state-sponsored anti-youth game, where the government sends a school class to an abandoned island with the rule that the youngsters have to kill each other until the last man standing.

I read somewhere that Battle Royale can be seen as a synonym of multiple allegories of a confused and deranged society. I completely agree with this statement because the movie, cynically, scrutinizes a lot of different aspects of people’s helplessness due to a broken-down system.

Fukasaku also raises a lot of philosophical and social-critical questions like academic pressure in relation with recession, group behaviour (friendship, trust and egoism) in futile situations, surveillance and entertainment through the government, media and reality TV; but he most of the time leaves the answers to the audition. Although the movie exaggerates a lot, I really do appreciate the acting. I think that the young actors are very credible in playing with all kinds of different emotions. They are only topped by Takeshi Kitano, who in my eyes is the anti-hero in persona and one of the best actors I have ever seen.

Battle Royale is a profound movie completed by its amazing soundtrack. Music plays a quite important part in Asian movies but this one underlines every single moment of the story in a perfectly amazing way. The music was composed by Masamichi Amano and recorded by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. Own plays just as Verdi’s Dies irae, Strauss’ Donauwalzer, Schubert’s song Auf dem Wasser zu singen, Bach’s Ouverture D-Dur BWV 1068 and the Radetzky-March make this soundtrack something really special, even without watching the movie.

To conclude I just want to add 2 interesting information. First of all something not that surprising: There was a remake announcement for 2008 which should have been done by Neal “FFFF (Fucked-up Fast and the Furious Franchise)” Moritz. Hopefully nobody will ever get the chance to do a remake of Battle Royale. Second, beside Kitano’s character (I have the strong feeling that he plays himself), I particularly do like Chiaki Kuriyami’s acting. Here it seems that I am not the only one, because Tarantino casted her for the role of Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill Vol.1 three years after Battle Royale.

As for me, I have seen this movie for over 10 times and I could re-watch it all day long. Battle Royale is one the few “ten out of ten movies”.



Mutiny On The Bounty – Trials

I bet this was a stuttering creation for the guys from Mutiny On The Bounty. Things did not look too good after their guitar virtuoso Luciano Lippis left the band shortly after the release of their first LP Danger Mouth; an album I personally anticipated quite much. A new guitarist was found but he turned out to be a better Scotsman in drinking and dishing out beatings than being a professional musician, from what I heard so far.

But as the proverb says: “An end is a new beginning” and so is Trials, M.O.T.B. second longplayer. With Cédric “Tchiggy” Czaika (a known musician in the Luxembourgish scene) as the new bassist and Clément Delporte pulling the strings, everything seemed to take a new course. So, after an extensive tour with the likes of Coheed and Cambria, Portugal the Man and Franz Ferdinand including an appearance at SXSW in Austin; the timing was right for the next big step and eventually Matt Bayles (who produced Isis, The Fall Of Troy and HORSE The Band) was hired as the producer for Trials.

So; what beauty do we have in Trials? It’s still a mathrockish experience but with more indie rock influences than mathrock/mathcore. I have often drawn comparisons to Minus The Bear when listening to the album, which is not a bad thing or meant in a pejorative way. But considering the big change M.O.T.B underwent from their first LP to Trials I must confess that I initially had my difficulties with the album. I was expecting Danger Mouth #2 with it’s chaotic guitars and light-hearted / carefree songwriting but Trials is a more serious and sombre masterwork, less dancer but more progressive and it requires your whole attention in order to be perceived.

There are killer tunes that totally kick in from the first second you listen to them like Artifacts, Myanmar, Shifting Paradigms or Mapping The Universe (the latter being a mind-blowing experience played live) but there are also tracks that need several attempts to unfold themselves like Candies or Statues. Guess I just miss the light-heartedness of the first album but if one considers the difficulties the collective had after 2 members parted their ways and with all the frustration they must have had to hold together and create something new I guess there was a lot of anger that pushed them in writing these more serious / darkish songs and that is totally understandable and of course acceptable.

Don’t get me wrong. Trials is a very good album. It’s challenging. You will listen to it over and over again in order to accept the change the band underwent. It’s hard to be a musician / music fan nowadays. As a musician you will piss a lot of people off if you release a clone of your previous album and earn a lot of criticism if you do something completely different. And to me, Trials is a logical evolution for Mutiny On The Bounty. There’s no better album as both LPs are completely different and outstanding in their own way. These boys have a promising future ahead and hopefully they will content us with a lot of surprises in the future. I better stop whining that this is no Danger Mouth #2 and love the Trials for what it is. Challenging but not disappointing.

Dead Boy Dreaming – ALCP


Which one of you guys still remembers the Luxembourgish extreme metal combo Dead Boy Dreaming? Well, I do and it’s a shame that this band and its music, after they split up, faded away from people’s minds. I remember seeing them live during one of the Emergenza festivals nearly ten years ago and I also remember that at this time I didn’t like them at all.

Nowadays, when I put the ALCP (Another Low Creation Phase) EP in my stereo, I don’t understand what I was thinking way back because there are two aspects I really do appreciate about Dead Boy Dreaming‘s music. First of all the record lasts only 11 minutes, which is something I always like when it comes to extreme music (except for black metal), because a lot of bands seem to have a very bad sense of time and often don’t know when to stop. 11 minutes are just perfect to go on an aggressive and groovy rampage!

Second I am quite surprised how diversified and technical Dead Boy Dreaming‘s music was. They were by far not a typical death band and their music is a nice syncrisis of death, hard- and grindcore elements with a few black splits and a punkish attitude all resulting in an incredible powerful 4 pieces EP.

Dead Boy Dreaming don’t limit themselves to one genre and everything sounds very coherent, a challenge a lot of bands try to face but lose, because of the lack of creativity.

If you have the chance to get a copy of ALCP, tell me what you think of it, because personally I believe that it is a shame that this band split-up. In 2012 this short EP still sounds more refreshing than most of the bullshit which is released these days. Dead Boy Dreaming created something which is very hard to achieve: their music (on the ALCP) seems to be timeless in a manner of speaking, at least over the last decade. That’s why nowadays Dead Boy Dreaming still could easily be a factor front and center.

It would not be the worst reunion I could imagine.

FFYS Diary – Day 3

Sunday

Day 3, the last day, or how I call it: “day of the zombies”.

The site was only sparsely filled with people over the whole day, which wasn’t really surprising, considering the fact that the campsite had been open for the fourth day by then. The line-up was a bit “thin” for my taste, but we managed to pick some highlights for you.

In order to get a little bit more awake, there were at least three handfuls of people gathering in the tent to watch the habitual fresh performance by the Jacob Conspiracy. It was kind of a pity in my eyes that they couldn’t celebrate their cheerful rock’n’roll outside at one of the open-air stages. As I already wrote a few months ago: “Desire” is just that kind of a summer song that should be performed outside in the bloody sun! Anyway! The general fatigue at least was confidently blown away by the Jacob Conspiracy after “Wake Up” at the latest. Rating? Rock’n’roll!

So what’s the best way to keep oneself in line? Right, go watch the Belgian version of AC/DC! Romano Nervoso’s (who I mixed up with Inspector Cluzo for two weeks) riff rock and funk just sounds like coming right from the 70s, but it is way harder than compared to the hard rock legends just mentioned. Not to forget the vocalist, who sounds at least just as aggressive as Turbowolf’s frontman. Needless to say that there was no lack of a kick ass drummer. Unfortunately the Frenchmen also suffered from the 3rd-day-fate, so that only a few people found the way to this awesome show. “So what” thought the vocalist, and jumped in front of the stage to perform. “Nice view from here, isn’t it?” Uncompromising power, (finally something louder after a long acoustic set on the stages between Jacob Conspiracy and Inspector Cluzo) and a sound that was even a bit harder than during Porn Queen the day before, made the hard rockers’ hearts leap for joy!

Back to the tent. Fights and Fires. Holy damn, what a performance! Despite the bassist’s bad sitcom taste (yeah, wearing a “Friends” shirt during a hardcore concert, you gotta love these guys!) his playing was just cruelly brilliant! Forcing the speakers to their knees already during the first song, those crazy Englishmen just showed how to stimulate the crowd from the beginning to the end. You really could see the joy in their eyes, so why not letting the spectators playing the guitar or singing the refrain during one of the many crowd-jumps? Melodic and classic hardcore mixed with post-core elements; once again a good wake-up-blend urgently needed that day! And in case there are far too little people, let’s just play the end of the concert in the middle of the present crowd. Just brilliant!

At the end of the day (or at least of our day) there was a very interesting and entertaining concert by the Flying Orkestar. Modern orchestral music combined with hiphop and funk gave a good time to all the dancers. And for those who weren’t too tired yet, there still was DJ Dee, who rocked the main stage in accustomed manner.

We want to thank the organisers and the bands for giving us a great time. Hope to see you next year!

Your El Gore team.

Denis