Sleepers’ Guilt – Sleepers’ Guilt


Sleepers’ Guilt are a rather fresh band from Luxembourg who released their self-titled debut EP at the end of March 2012. Even though the quartet was only formed in 2011, it consists of experienced musicians from the now defunct bands Ophidian, Clean State and I Spy Apocalypse.

I’ll start this review with a very unusual and for the end consumer unimportant thing: the digital press kit that was given to me was very nicely put together and featured the songs, the entire booklet in very high quality, some promo pictures as well as an info sheet. And from the latter I’ll actually quote a sentence before I dive into the actual review since it describes their style perfectly: “they play modern melodic metal with a progressive touch and clean vocals, without losing the aggressiveness and trying to create their own sound and their own approach towards making music.”

The first thing that struck me as a listener was the remarkably clean and yet powerful production. Since this EP is entirely self-produced in a private studio in Luxembourg I was blown away by the tight guitar sound and the very organic drum sound. The vocals are also very intelligible and are perfectly mixed into the instrumental surroundings.

The six song EP is all throughout accompanied by piano play and the one or the other synthesizer which gives the ensemble somewhat of a symphonic undertone, as is tradition in the melodic metal genre. However it isn’t too blatant and thus doesn’t distract you at all from the, in some parts, very interesting riffs nor does it sound kitschy. The riffs are actually the part that impress me the most on this record, there are some real neckbreakers on here that I’m sure will motivate many people at home and mostly at shows to headbang enthusiastically.

Lyrically, the EP is mainly sociocritical and definitely a nice read. There is however one thing that heavily bothers me on a personal level: the singer’s voice. This is obviously very subjective but I’m just not a fan of this type of voices, no matter how flawless the performance. It’s what I like to call the “Dream Theater Paradox”: instrumentally to my liking but ruined by the singing. Don’t get me wrong: the vocalist does a great job and in some parts reminds me a bit of the singer of Sabaton but except for a ten second part towards the middle of the last song Raven’s Fight where he (almost) growls it just doesn’t appeal to me.

In conclusion I can definitely recommend giving the EP a chance if you are either open-minded about vocals or if you are into melodic metal. Personally I’ll try to check them out live at the next best opportunity to make up my mind. For more information about their tour dates and possibilities where you can buy their EP, check out their Facebook page and make sure to give the song below a listen.

Piratenmassaker


A week ago, Eric borrowed me his original Red Edition DVD of Jochen Taubert’s Piratenmassaker. I have absolutely no idea how he managed to get his hands on this piece of shit. Piratenmassaker is the first movie ever which I turned off after half an hour because I feel personal defense. It is an impudence calling this talent-free, no-budget crap a movie. You may say now that I only have seen 30 minutes of it and that the movie may evolves with time passing by. Well I try to describe what my cancer infected eyes have seen.

First of all the layout of the DVD itself looks like a Photoshop rape. The Intro is that bad that I really was motivated to turn the film off after a few seconds. But hey, (an intro of) a DVD doesn’t reveal anything about a movie. Well in this case it does.

Being filmed with the family camcorder and post-produced with Windows Movie Maker make this flick something really special. Especially the great artistic fading-outs in the beginning are out of this world and nearly forced me into drowning little puppies in order to calm down. The incoherent and confusing story (some pirates get chased by a monk and his army of cannibals), the absence of a plot, the “brilliant” insertion of private holiday video sequences, tons of movie mistakes and the use of the last visit at the local Aquarium (in order to simulate an underwater filming sequence!!!!!) elevate this movie to a completely new level of bullshit.

I don’t want to be a know it all but Taubert must have lost all his marbles but at least he toes the line and the unaesthetic camera work, the miserable editing, the sound and the “special effects” complete the gruesome quality of Piratenmassaker. No boom mic was used which isn’t very beneficial when you film with granny’s pre-war cam. The “effects” are the worst I have ever seen and Traubert even re-uses different shots repeatedly which, for me, is a cinematic faux-pas. It seems that the movie budget was that small that even the actors, if you can call them like that, have to share their outfits. The splatter effects are bloody insane and mainly consist in a guy squirting fake blood with an injection from behind the camera. After a few amateurish blood squirts Taubert and his untalented crew even ran out of blood or they simply forgot to use it!

The people who are trying to act can be divided in two categories. There are a few ones who are completely overacting and other ones who have the capability of expression of a stone. But both groups have something in common, they play with an awkward reluctance and are most of the time not even able to recite two simple sentences in a row.

To conclude I’d like to say that I have no problems with no-budget movies, but I have a problem with people taking others for a fool and this for 80 minutes. As I already said, I didn’t finish the movie but what I have seen in 30 minutes suffices to give me a post-traumatic amateur movie syndrome. I built up a completely new definition of useless junk. Just don’t watch it!



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.