For a moment, I thought Cannibal Corpse was not going to recover from the departure of Pat O’Brien in the songwriting department. While 2021’s ‘Violence Unimagined’ wasn’t bad, something just felt off about nearly every song not written by Rob Barrett – my other favorite songwriter in Cannibal Corpse. Fortunately, ‘Chaos Horrific’ is a lot better. O’Brien’s replacement Erik Rutan seems to have found his take on Cannibal Corpse’s songwriting and bassist Alex Webster appears to have been more inspired this time around, resulting in what is probably the band’s most vicious, thrashing set of songs since 2006’s ‘Kill’ album.
While I quite like Cannibal Corpse, I find them fairly difficult to review, as they are a band I tend to enjoy on a riff by riff basis rather than song by song. This usually means that the Cannibal Corpse albums I like are the ones that heavily lean towards O’Brien’s twisted dissonance and Barrett’s intense thrash riffs. ‘Chaos Horrific’ is quite heavy on the extreme thrash turned up to eleven from everyone involved and it simply works. The energy injection the band has gotten while writing and recording the album pushed them to make something I didn’t think they had in them anymore.
Despite his wealth of experience writing, performing and producing death metal, Rutan did not quite fill the void O’Brien left behind on ‘Violence Unimagined’ in my opinion. However, Rutan’s ‘Blood Blind’ is exactly the twisted, semi-doomy grind that the album needs and his closer ‘Drain You Empty’ has similar sections alternating with probably the most intense death metal on here. ‘Fenzied Feeding’ is my favorite of his compositions here though, feeling like a steam train gone out of control with its pummeling, speedy riffs, which have their impact enhanced by the dark, ominous vibe of its slower middle section.
‘Vengeful Invasion’ is carried by one of the catchiest riffs ever produced by a non-melodic death metal band before morphing into a highly effective mid-tempo groove. ‘Pitchfork Impalement’ sports the most hilarious title, but also some of the most deliciously in-your-face riffs of the album. ‘Summoned for Sacrifice’ is reminiscent of Slayer’s best slower material, while ‘Fracture and Refracture’ and opening track ‘Overlords of Violence’ are excellent death thrashers. I would also like to commend Paul Mazurkiewicz. He may not be the most technical drummer in death metal, but his excellent sense of groove keeps the music from spiraling out of control. His drum sound is also perfect for this material.
Sure, Cannibal Corpse does not do anything revolutionary on ‘Chaos Horrific’, but complaining about that would be missing the point. What the album does do is play to all of the band’s strengths in a way I frankly think they haven’t done since ‘Kill’, enjoyable as some of the records released in the intervening seventeen years have been. Barrett, Webster and Rutan have found a fantastic way of weaving technicality into a set of energetic death metal tracks that might come across as straightforward, but remain surprising over repeated listens. Not many death metal bands of their ilk and era are able to do that quite as well.
Recommended tracks: ‘Vengeful Invasion’, ‘Frenzied Feeding’, ‘Fracture and Refracture’
Earlier this year at the Eurosonic festival, I came across Traversus: a young Dutch band playing a surprisingly effective blend of dense progressive metal sections and catchy melodies that will appeal to a more pop/rock-oriented audience. Recently they released their excellent debut EP ‘The Only Way Is Through’. In the wake of that release, I sat down with singer/guitarist Madelief de Groot, guitarist Joey Wessels, bassist Mika Linde and drummer Liam de Groot.
Despite their ages ranging from 18 to 23, Traversus has a surprisingly accomplished sound, possibly a result of them being able to hone their chops in the relatively remote town of Emmen for the last five years. “Spending the entire covid period with just the four of us in a rehearsal room without anyone having any opinions about it automatically made our sound something highly personal”, Madelief smiles.
“I think we truly found our sound around September or October of last year”, Joey states. “That’s when we had just finished ‘The Unattained’, the last song on ‘The Only Way Is Through’. Not long before that, we finished ‘Orange Skyline’ and ‘The Weight’. Those songs go together very well stylistically, in our opinion. And that is the direction we wanted to take from then on.”
“This material is a lot more progressive than our older material”, Mika adds. “The sounds coming from our instruments and the way we sound together as a band has developed as well. We have spent a lot of time figuring out how to sound well together. Things like that really helped us develop a sound of our own.”
“I wouldn’t want to say that we sound more mature now, because that makes it sound like we have already arrived where we need to be”, Madelief says. “And that is never really the case, I think. But we have matured since writing our older songs. In the beginning, we often looked at the bands we liked and how we could imitate their sound in a way.
After a while, we reached a point where we thought: this collaboration works well. That is when you start to make far more conscious choices. And it also helps you dare to do more things you wouldn’t do otherwise and develop your own sound rather than trying to be someone else.”
Tools
The band also points to Hit The North, the Eurosonic-associated talent development program for bands from the northeast of the Netherlands, as an important factor in their recent development. As part of this program, Traversus worked on their sound and presentation for a year with the help of band coach Ivo Severijns, former bassist for Herman Brood’s Wild Romance, Powerplay and Kane, culminating in the Eurosonic performance that blew me away.
“We are lucky that our region is fairly serious about talent development”, Madelief says. “We have tried every project and every conversation with a professional from the music industry we could get. That is what got us selected for Hit The North. That program lasts a year. And in that year, we have learned a lot. We’ve a professional coming to our rehearsal room, nit-picking and perfecting little details that had not even crossed our minds yet.”
“I think we made progress musically through our collaboration with Ivo”, Mika nods. “He really helped us improve the songwriting process and he drilled us to get tighter. For example, he asked us to play a chorus twenty times and it got tighter every time we played it. He has a great open mind and gave us some good tools to help us build our own path from now on. It might have been an advantage for me that he is a bassist. I’m not a power hitter by nature, quite the opposite actually, but he did teach me how to maximize the impact of the notes by hitting them in a different way. Those tips have been very useful.”
“And he helped us professionalize”, Liam adds. “Especially on the business side of things. Of course we love making the music that we make, but there is a necessity to show yourself on social media and to know how things are done regarding copyright collecting agencies. He really helped us find our way in that world.”
Guide
Another thing Severijns helped them with is getting acquainted with producer Joost van den Broek, who recorded, mixed and produced ‘The Only Way Is Through’ at the prestigious Sandlane Recording Facilities. Van den Broek is best known for his bombastic metal productions for the likes of Epica, Stream Of Passion, Ayreon and Powerwolf, but equally adept at more straightforward productions, such as Traversus’ EP.
“Ivo knows Joost and thought he would be a good fit for what we are doing”, Madelief explains. “He also said Joost is really good at what he does and that showed, because it was a fantastic collaboration. He guided us very well with the backing vocals. I had ideas for backing vocals, but Joost knew how to translate those ideas in a way that sounded good on the recording.”
“He gave us some very useful advice”, Joey agrees. “Liam had a drum fill which Joost recommended to play a little differently and in my case, he suggested a few overdubs that generally work well in similar places in other songs. Little extra touches that made the arrangements a bit better.”
“Sandlane is a big studio with a number of movable panels”, Liam says. “So I didn’t have to hold myself back while drumming. Joost even said that to me: just put all your passion into it, because you don’t want to end up with a half-baked drum sound that has no power whatsoever. Ivo also frequently said that in the period leading up to the recordings. So that is exactly what I went for.”
Challenge
The fact that the compositions for ‘The Only Way Is Through’ did not need a lot of tampering speaks volumes about the songwriting skills of the young band. “The skeleton of a song is largely written by me”, Joey explains. “Whenever I write the parts, I will try to imagine a scenario in which we sound powerful together by using three instruments that all play something else.”
Given the busy nature of some of the sections, it is remarkable that the parts never clash. “Most clashes happen when I’m still writing or playing the song on my own”, Joey assures us. “Those are the moments I realize I need to change something. But that’s the beauty of writing songs in Guitar Pro; quickly altering a few wrong notes never takes more than a few seconds.
Since we have two guitarists, I usually try to make sure we generally don’t play the same thing simultaneously, to have a broader soundscape harmonically. But sometimes there are riffs we need to double. If Madelief has to sing over such a riff, I will try to come up with a version that has slightly fewer notes. Or a version that highlights the most important notes. I’ll take care of the faster notes that flesh out the riffs. That usually fixes any potential issues.”
“Whenever Joey sends in a new song, I’ll listen to it about ten times, then I’ll play it on repeat in Guitar Pro at 25 percent speed”, Madelief explains. “Sometimes it doesn’t work and then I’ll go to Joey and cry. However, Joey has gotten a better understanding of the fact that I’m not as good a guitarist as he is. And that I have to sing at the same time. He considers that when writing the parts, which usually works very well.
I’ll be honest: everything Joey writes for me is a challenge. But that makes it fun as well. I remember very well that I couldn’t sing and play guitar simultaneously in the beginning. That frustrated me to no end. But at a certain point, it just clicked. The same thing happened with our live shows, which we wanted to sound roughly like the recordings. When we just started working on that, Mika and Joey had to put in quite a bit of effort to make the backing vocals work. But even that is improving.”
Float
The lyrics and vocal melodies are all Madelief’s work. “I’m not as schooled as Joey in music theory”, she admits. “So I tend to listen what he writes and plays. Then I try to come up with something that sort of floats over the music. ‘The Weight’ would be an exception. The lyrics and melody that ended up being the chorus were already written before I heard the song.
I have the feeling that Joey and I understand each other very well when it comes to such things. Joey has also gotten much better at leaving space for the vocals through the years. He works on that very consciously. That is a very pleasant situation for me. Also, it makes a big difference that Joey’s music already carries a lot of emotion. Because of that, I will usually feel inspired by something he has written, since it stirs up certain feelings in me or it enhances feelings I already have.
My mental health is very fragile, so that is a theme that is fairly prominent in our lyrics. And there are simply a lot of things in the world I have an opinion about and about which I think: this needs to change. But it might be a nice challenge for myself to write something about a completely different subject.”
Traction
Traversus’ home town of Emmen and the province of Drenthe the town is located in are relatively remote within the Dutch music landscape. “The music we play is quite a niche style of music”, Mika says. “And here in Drenthe, there aren’t quite as many options as in a bigger city or in other parts of the country. But at the moment, we are working hard on getting a bit more traction in other parts of the country. Or Germany, for example, where we recently played our first show. The scene there does seem to suit us a little better.”
“On the one hand, it sucks that there aren’t many opportunities for musicians in Drenthe”, Madelief says. “And I don’t want to trivialize the work of anyone who tries to remedy that situation, but the fact is that there are not a lot of places to go. On the other hand, Germany or a city like Groningen is not that far away.
We have discussed things like that at some point. People have told us there are many places to play metal in the west of the Netherlands and around Tilburg. We may be able to find an audience there, but there is also more competition. There is more to choose from, so defending your spot requires much more effort.”
And outside of the rock and metal scene, given the fact that Traversus’ melodies can be quite poppy? “When Ivo said our choruses are quite poppy, I thought that was a bit of a dangerous term”, Madelief admits. “We play hard rock and metal, it’s progressive, so we don’t necessarily want to hear something we do is poppy. Ultimately, we did find out that combination of extremes might be a strength of ours.”
“We never really think about that either”, Joey adds. “It just happens. We never really made any conscious stylistic decisions. It just came together this way, because we all have different musical preferences.”
Fruitful
‘The Only Way Through’ has just been released, but the band already has one eye on the future. “I’m always writing a lot of music”, says Joey. “Simply because I like creating something musically. Sometimes I send those ideas to the others and we’ll work on them during rehearsals, sometimes I don’t. But the ideas are always flowing for me. Sure, sometimes I suffer from writer’s block and I only write terrible things. But in general, I can never wait to share my ideas with the others.”
“Every time Joey has a fruitful period when it comes to writing songs, there will be various e-mails with multiple Guitar Pro files every week”, Madelief smiles. “At the moment, we haven’t rehearsed in a while, because we were very focused on the release of the EP and before that was the summer holiday period, but there are about four new songs we are working on right now.”
“We just finished two new songs”, Joey emphasizes. “And I love both of them. One of them is actually my favorite song we have done so far. It’s a pity that one didn’t make the record. But at least we’ll have something to look forward to for the next record.”
‘The Only Way Is Through’ is out now. You can listen to the EP on Spotify right here:
Whenever I need the rebellious spirit that seems to have been middle-classed out of contemporary European and American heavy metal, my attention tends to quickly turn to Central and South America. Contracara is one of those bands that made me realize what it was that I needed to hear in uncomplicated heavy metal, without being able to articulate it at the time. While all the elements in the Peruvian quintet’s sound are familiar, they play their songs with an energy as if they’ve just discovered this genre as an outlet. Their most recent album ‘1307’ sees them refining their sound, but not without keeping that irresistible energy.
Stylistically, the changes between ‘1307’ and debut album ‘ENDM’ aren’t even all that big. The riffs of Gino and Ricardo Bogani still sound like Judas Priest if they had started in 1990’s America with the occasional early thrash influence, Sara Monzón’s vocals still range from aggressive to simply forceful and the rhythms are fairly uncomplicated, but excellent at enhancing the dynamics of the songs. ‘1307’ just adds a lot more depth to Contracara’s sound. There are more riffs, allowing the generally longer songs to tell more dynamic stories and there is increased room for dramatic lead guitar themes – often harmonized – courtesy of the Bogani’s.
One wouldn’t have to look any further than opening track ‘Manipulados por el Sistema’ to hear that added depth in full effect. It starts out sounding like an aggressive heavy metal track that would have been a perfect fit for ‘ENDM’, only to go into an epic, almost Iron Maiden-esque direction about halfway through. There are multiple instances of this on ‘1307’. ‘MCCCVII’, for instance, appears to be one of the faster thrashers on the album after its short classical guitar intro, but it moves through several heroic, borderline cinematic sections throughout its seven minutes, including a quieter section spearheaded by Eduardo ‘Cheta’ Deza’s bass arpeggios.
Naturally, Contracara hasn’t forgotten how to write a simple, in-your-face heavy metal song. The relatively aggressive ‘Existir para Morir’ and closing track ‘Enemigo de Su Ley’ are exactly that, while ‘Creen Ser Dioses’ is a fantastic speedster and the powerful mid-tempo stomper ‘Golpe a Golpe’ consists of great riffs and a beautiful, yearning chorus. It’s just that allowing themselves to broaden their scope a little more has made Contracara a better band. The slight change in approach turns songs like ‘Sangre de Serpiente’ or ‘Silencio Sin Final’, which would have been fun thrashy headbangers otherwise, into epic metal masterpieces.
If ‘1307’ proves anything, it would be that maturing your sound while keeping what makes you special is perfectly possible as a metal band. Nobody who has heard ‘ENDM’ will mistake the music on ‘1307’ for anyone but Contracara’s, with all the enthusiasm, energy, aggression and memorable songwriting that comes with it. And for those who haven’t heard Contracara: go and listen to both of their albums. If you are looking for traditional heavy metal riffs with a contemporary bite and excellent rough-edged – but not too rough-edged – female vocals, there are hardly any better places to check.
Recommended tracks: ‘Manipulados por el Sistema’, ‘Sangre de Serpiente, ‘Existir para Morir’
Mari Hamada was one of the first female singers in Japan to devote herself to the harder side of Rock music. This year, she celebrates the fortieth anniversary of her debut album ‘Lunatic Doll’. One of the ways she does that is with the international release – her first in about thirty years – of her excellent new album ‘Soar’. Mari tells us about her rich career and what drives her creatively.
Through the years, a new Mari Hamada album was released about every two years. However, the five-year break between ‘Soar’ and its predecessor ‘Gracia’ is the longest she ever had between two albums. “The amount of effort and the degree of difficulty required to complete an album increases with each production”, the singer admits. “My life might be a journey to keep searching for that source of motivation. I have always had the feeling that singing is my destiny. To fulfil that destiny, I have to search for something that motivates me. Depending on the era, it could be sympathy, joy, anger, frustration and so on.
As the difficulty of producing each album increases, it is natural for me to take longer to finish it. Due to the covid pandemic, there was of course a change in the production process, but I think it worked out positively in the end. Communicating directly with the musicians and engineers by sending files to each other made it possible for me to concentrate on each task. At the same time, I could carefully examine everything at my own pace. Because of this, I was able to do all my work with the proper amount of care.”
Motif
On ‘Soar’, tracks like ‘The Fall’ sound surprisingly modern. And yet, she doesn’t deliberately try to keep up with the times. “I don’t have much awareness of trends”, she says resolutely. “I am conscious that my work is a development of my own musical history and sensibilities, not a trend created by others. However, in the process of making an album, I think I am influenced more by the social context. My musicians and collaborators are more likely to have their awareness of trends reflected in my work.”
This is relevant, as Mari is usually the sole writer or a co-writer on her songs. “I will take the initiative”, she explains. “It has been that way since my debut album, but the range and the depth of my collaborations have been expanded over time. When co-writing this album, I tried to find a shining motif in the songs as they are presented and based on that, I fleshed out the structures and the arrangements of the songs.
Of course, there have been times in the past when it was the other way around. I’ll often write the melody when we go back and forth, but there have been times when I was in charge of writing the chorus and there were songs where my focus was organizing the melody and the arrangement. The balance in co-writing will vary based on the state of completion of the song when it is first presented.”
Unfamiliar
“These days are such a departure from the era when there were limited means of recording ideas. The evolution of DAW’s and VST’s have made it much easier to turn the ideas in my head into concrete sounds. I’m also able to make more time for it. In the past, I was making an album per year while also touring, so I didn’t have much time for songwriting.
Good chord progressions are common and options are limited to a certain extent, but I see it as my task to draw some originality from it. Whenever possible, I also have a strong desire to consider chord progressions and melodic structures that are unfamiliar.
In producing new songs with so many musicians, my experience in actually recording my works has increased as well. Because of this, there is a sense of continuous creative expansion from this source of ideas. That source has become a solid foundation to work from, so I never really run out of ideas. The only restrictions are time and energy. Those are the two biggest challenges as a creator.”
Responsibility
Moreover, Mari has not just been writing, but also producing her own albums. “Over the past forty years, I have felt deeply that the person who ultimately bears the responsibility for my work is me”, she explains. “In co-producing with others, respect for the other party is essential. And sometimes, it is necessary to make compromises in order to move forward. The biggest advantage of producing everything myself is the elimination of wasted time. The less time I have in a production, the more responsibility I have. So I just have to take on that responsibility from the beginning.
The downside is also time. If I make all choices by myself, that also means that all the responsibilities of the entire production fall on me. I often feel that no matter how much time I have, it is never enough and that is painful. Time moves very quickly in the music industry and fans are always eagerly awaiting new releases and tours. That can be a real problem for me right now.”
Individual
The musicians Mari works with on her albums have been a combination of experienced Japanese and American musicians for many years. “Japanese people like to say within a common understanding with those around them”, she explains. “They despise anything that is above average. For Americans, it is natural to be different and they are strongly aware that they are individuals that should be respected. That comes out in the music. When it’s good, I don’t hesitate to try out the best ideas, which often works well in rock music.
However, once they lose their motivation, they can quickly give up. The Japanese rarely go above and beyond, but they are tenacious and they always finish with an above average result. Therefore, when it comes to tours that require a sense of solidarity and perseverance as a band, I focus on working with Japanese musicians. In a creative domain, I decide who to work with based on the time constraints of the job, but I often choose to record in the United States. In a nutshell anyway; of course, every individual is different and regardless of nationality, they do the best they can.”
Enthusiasm
“When I work with American musicians, I usually go to L.A. to meet them personally and record with them in the studio. Of course, I also do the direction and we also have Bill Drescher, an engineer who has been working with us for many years. Most of the musicians I work with, I’ve been working with for more than thirty years, so I am well-versed in their strengths and skills.
When I’m working on a demo in Japan, I’m already roughly imagining who I’m going to ask. It’s not limited to those musicians, but once I work with someone, so I choose the person who feels like the best choice for the song.
That isn’t necessarily a matter of their musical skills. I value meeting and continuing to meet people who can recognize something good in someone else. The hearts of the people who approach my work with enthusiasm are great assets. I value that. I put an emphasis on their nature as people.”
Athlete
When Mari’s career started, female rock singers were quite uncommon in Japan. “I never really had a role model”, she nods. “The Japanese entertainment industry in particular operates with a unique set of values. I think it is no exaggeration to say that there was no one who understood me. Therefore, I naturally turned my attention to international artists. The style closest to me was that of Pat Benatar, Heart, Linda Ronstadt and classic rock in general, but I was particularly inspired by singers like Ronnie James Dio and Klaus Meine.”
Nowadays, Mari has been singing for over forty years and her vocal cords don’t seem to have sacrificed any power at all. “When I was young, I had a very busy schedule of live performances and singing in the media circuit”, she explains. “These days, I’m trying to take on a schedule that isn’t quite as reckless, but that’s also what people around me don’t quite understand. My singing style requires a physical condition that is pretty close to that of an athlete. I don’t know if you can call it development, but I have been digging deeper and polishing my voice and my singing.”
After singing hard rock and heavy metal for a few years, Mari mainly used her voice for pop rock and melodic hard rock. Recently, she carved a great niche for herself in symphonic metal and bombastic ballads: “I don’t feel like I’ve experimented with genres”, she says. “My music at any given time reflects my emotions in the most accurate way possible. To be self-analytical: I think the reason for the shift to the more powerful sound in recent years is this swirling anger that I have suppressed for a long time. I feel making music is the release of the ego and the sublimation of the self.”
Borderless
In the early nineties, attempts were made to present Mari’s music to an international audience. ‘Introducing… Mari Hamada’ (1993) even contained English-language versions of her older material. Unfortunately, her international career never really materialized. ‘Soar’ is her first album since that period that has been released internationally. “I think that the walls between domestic and overseas markets have come down and that means we are in an era that is more borderless”, she says. “In the past, when we were releasing albums overseas, there were always a lot of obstacles. But now we live in an era in which information flows more freely and it doesn’t require quite as much special effort.”
Her lyrics are still largely in Japanese. “I like to construct sentences using my native language and Japanese writing is my forte”, Mari explains. “However, when constructing chord progressions and rhythms, there are some things that are difficult to express within the rhythm of the Japanese language. In such cases, I use English. Japanese simply isn’t suited to rhythmic syncopation as well.
I really want to know what kind of impressions people from various regions and countries will have when they listen to my music. I make music without thinking of genres and countries, but over the course of my forty years as an artist, I have absorbed all kinds of sensibilities and projected them into my music. That’s why I think it sounds like a mixture of all genres. I think it’s positioned at the origin of current trends in Japanese anime songs, but I also think it has a profoundness similar to European symphonic metal. I’m looking forward to your impressions!”
2021’s ‘Kuraku’ was as close to a median Ningen Isu album as we ever got. Solid, but unspectacular. Fortunately, the power trio from Aomori has a way of following lesser albums up with something amazing. The lackluster ‘Burai Hōjō’ was followed by the crusing masterpiece ‘Kaidan Soshite Shi to Eros’, the eclectic, but also kind of messy ‘Ijigen Kara no Hōkō’ was followed by the spectacular ‘Shin Seinen’ and now, the follow-up to ‘Kuraku’ is the incredibly dynamic ‘Shikisokuzekū’. Ningen Isu’s characteristic seventies hardrock meets early doom metal sound is firmly in place, but ‘Shikisokuzekū’ places slightly more emphasis on the former than usual.
At times, ‘Shikisokuzekū’ feels like Ningen Isu’s early masterpiece ‘Ōgon no Yoake’ pushed through the filter of their notably heavier twenty-first century productions. It isn’t quite as heavy on the Black Sabbath worship as ‘Kuraku’, although their specter is never too far away from Ningen Isu’s riffs and Shinji Wajima’s guitar sound. There are doomy songs, but also occasional looser rock ‘n’ rollers, the folky ballad ‘Hoshizora no Michibiki’, uptempo hardrockers and galloping heavy metal riffs galore. The galloping riff in the fantastic opener ‘Saraba Sekai’ brought a smile to my face immediately.
Wajima appears to take on more lead vocals than on ‘Kuraku’ and I would say that the material in general suits his voice well. That doesn’t mean that all the highlights are sung by Wajima, however. Bassist Kenichi Suzuki wrote and sings on the brilliant ‘Namekuji Taisō’, a doomy monster of a track with an awesome ominous intro and almost tribal tom rhythms by Nobu Nakajima in its verses. The doom shuffle of ‘Kamidami no Kessem’ is prime Ningen Isu, while Suzuki’s vocal aggression elevates ‘Uchū no Hito Wanderer’. Nakajima sings on ‘Mirai Kara no Dasshutsu’ and as usual, it’s a fun, speedy hardrocker that fits his voice perfectly.
Highlighting the album for me is the epic closing track ‘Shide no Tabiji no Monogatari’. The main riff is one of my favorite riffs in Ningen Isu’s discography. It’s quite simple, but continues to give me goosebumps after repeated listens. The rest of the song is structured incredibly as well. The build-up to its fairly catchy chorus is brilliant and the crushing doom of the middle section is adorned with a fantastic guitar solo, while the intro and outro are simply monumental. Other highlights include the Sabbath meets ZZ Top swing of ‘Ikiru’ and the surprisingly uptempo ‘Uchū Dengekitai’.
‘Shikisokuzekū’ might not have the immediate impact that ‘Shin Seinen’ and ‘Kaidan Soshite Shi to Eros’ had, but make no mistake: this is Ningen Isu doing what they do best. The album sounds like they allowed themselves to have as much fun as possible within the parameters of their sound. The result is a highly dynamic album that stays entertaining throughout its 71 minutes. I do think one or two songs could have been sacrificed to maximize the material’s impact, but the fact that I don’t know which songs that would have been says enough about how good everything on ‘Shikisokukezū’ is.
Recommended tracks: ‘Shide no Tabiji no Monogatari’, ‘Saraba Sekai’, ‘Namekuji Taisō’, ‘Ikiru’
Not too long ago, I published an interview with Agora’s Eduardo Contreras and Eduardo Carrillo on this very blog. Since it was a very pleasant, friendly conversation, I decided to put an edited version of the interview on my YouTube channel, available for viewing right here as well. The footage was edited – clumsily, by me – because not all of the interview was captured on camera and the edits do give the bits that were a better flow. Please enjoy the interview!
The music and the video footage used between the cuts are from the video clip for the title track of Agora’s English-language debut ‘Empire‘, kindly provided to me by Beristain Entertainment. If you like what you hear, make sure to check out the full album, as it honestly is really good. It is available on all big streaming platforms as we speak and the album will actually be released on cd and vinyl next month. A good way to get acquainted with this fantastic band!
For Eduardo Carrillo, it was the first interview he ever did in English. Can we just appreciate how incredibly well he does for a first time? Tons of thanks to the Eduardos and Beristain Entertainment for helping me set this up, as well as the really pleasant conversation. I hope it will show.
Edu Falaschi’s 2021 album ‘Vera Cruz’ was a comeback of sorts. It was a ridiculously ambitious undertaking, from its concept seeped in Brazilian history right down to its massive arrangements, but somehow it worked really well. ‘Vera Cruz’ contained everything a contemporary power metal album should need: memorable uptempo riffs and melodic themes, huge choruses that actually stick and just enough deviations from the genre’s norms to stay interesting throughout. As a result, I eagerly awaited its follow-up ‘Eldorado’ and fortunately, it is nearly as good.
Despite not being quite as ambitious in scope, ‘Eldorado’ largely follows the same stylistic route as ‘Vera Cruz’. Lyrically, the album is still riddled with romanticized pieces of Latin American history, though Falaschi seems to not limit himself to his native Brazil on ‘Eldorado’. The music is spiced up with traditional Brazilian elements here and there, which I would encourage Falaschi to go even further with next time around. Generally, ‘Vera Cruz’ and ‘Eldorado’ are the perfect albums for anyone who thinks Angra went too progressive after Falaschi’s departure. Most of ‘Eldorado’ is speedy power metal – remarkably speedy at times – with massive, triumphant hooks.
That doesn’t mean ‘Eldorado’ can’t get progressive. Guitarist Roberto Barros is much more involved with the songwriting this time around and his modern power metal riffing with unpredictable progressive touches is all over the album. The long and varied title track even goes into Dream Theater-esque territory at times. ‘Reign of Bones’ flirts with power/prog and would not have been out of place on ‘Temple of Shadows’. But the main attractions of ‘Eldorado’ are its blazing power metal tracks, such as ‘Sacrifice’, the dynamic opener ‘Señores del Mar (Wield the Sword)’ and the hyperspeed ‘Tenochtitlán’, which has drummer Aquiles Priester firing on all cylinders.
One reason why ‘Eldorado’ isn’t quite as good as ‘Vera Cruz’, however, is because the ballads are absolutely dreadful. Falaschi appears to aim for big emotional climaxes, but doesn’t seem to understand that you need more for that than just adding guitars, drums and strings and repeat the chorus for about a minute and a half. Closing track ‘In Sorrow’ is easily the best of the three ballads, as it is notably darker and more dynamic, but even that one outstays its welcome by about a minute. Admittedly, the ballads Falaschi wrote for Angra suffered from similar issues, but I don’t remember the ballads on ‘Vera Cruz’ being this bad.
Anything else on ‘Eldorado’ ranges from good to excellent though. Falaschi has found the perfect complementary songwriting partner in Barros, who is all over the album with his guitar colleague Diogo Mafra. Despite the album carrying Falaschi’s name, it’s the spectacular guitar arrangements and the excellent drumming by Aquiles Priester – who remains as creative as one can possibly be within the tightly defined parameters of uptempo power metal drumming – that make ‘Eldorado’ as good as it is. If you simply ignore the terrible ballads, what you are left with is about 45 minutes of fantastic proggy power metal.
Recommended tracks: ‘Tenochtitlán’, ‘Eldorado’, ‘Reign of Bones’, ‘Sacrifice’
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