The Algorithm – CRITICAL.ERROR – 3.5/5

Djentstep. Let me just give you a moment to swallow back down the vomit that slowly rose in the back of your throat; a catchy name that sounds like one of the biggest abominations to music since Brokencyde coined the genre “Crunkcore;” a combination of the detestable mind-numbing cyclical repetition of Dubstep and the repeated syncopated open notes that defines Djent. It barely sounds like there's enough actual substance here to make more than one song, and yet this mad Frenchman has managed to create an entire experimental album that sounds, if anything, just a little bit too batshit insane for it's own good. Take a dollop of Venetian Snares “2370894,” undeniably a touch of Genghis Tron's “Board up the House” and the catchy back beats from an Aphex Twin album, shaken all up with plenty of samples ranging from saxophones to Eminem, albeit I can't pick out the track sampled (“The Way I Am” perhaps?), and you probably have a better idea of what to expect.

There can be no denying that this album is treading into uncharted waters; the idea of Djent as a guitar tone has only really caught in the past few years so for someone to already be taking it into alien territory is a sign of how quickly it's finding new uses. The entire album is made using computers, and unlike some electronica he makes no attempt to disguise that fact. It's crisp and clean to the point that it induces a sci-fi like tone to it, and that goes for MIDI sampling used throughout; more than just the drums but the guitars and choral passages are recreated through samples, complementing the more conventional dubstep backdrop.

It's fascinating material and listening to it feels as though I'm stepping into the unknown, poking a stick at a Frankenstein-like experiment to create a monster that was never meant to be and then jumping back when he does something unexpected like asking how he could ever find love if his own creator can't bear the sight of him, not that I think this particular architect has this problem. In fact, if Frankenstein involved a doctor-experiment sex scene the whole book would probably reach a whole new pinnacle of nasty, yet that is the closest metaphor my mind can come up with. The problem arises when you listen to it a few times, you start to get to know the beast – I'm still running with this metaphor – and realise he's not some detestable monster but a living and breathing creation, you stop looking up at it in awe and fear for what it represents and start to see the cracks. “The Algorithm's” fundamental flaw is in actually trying to create Djentstep. It genuinely is a musical atrocity on its own and with too much reliance on these two highly repetitive musical styles, the mere fact he's managed to make something quite impressive feels like a miracle in itself. If these elements became downplayed in future releases, as it does for his magnum opus “Kernal,” where he finally lets the insanity out, then Dr. Strange might have found a new host. Until then, it's best we leave this experiment alone until the good doctor works out the kinks.

Highlights: Kernal

Alcest – Les Voyages de l'Âme - 4/5

With my MP3 player not fully updated – guess by the last two artists just how much of my music collection managed to be transferred before I finally got around to doing it properly – my attention found it's way to Alcest, a band I knew of but never really paid much attention to, and I don't entirely know why I had a copy of their latest at all, but I'm rather glad I did. See, they – or indeed 'he,' given that this is a one man project after all – are often referred to as a 'Post-Black Metal' or “Blackgaze” band as the genre is oft called, but it seems curious that the artists I'm mostly inclined to compare it to play different genres entirely; Carved in Stone (Folk) and their gentle acoustic guitar work; Agalloch's (Folk/Dark Metal) use of simple lines and thick, slowly shifting backing work to carve weave their atmospheric magic; even the recently reviewed Thy Catafalque (Avant-Garde Metal) shares many similarities. I don't deny the genre fits, there are after all many of the staples that you would expect from a combination of the two genres; a strong atmosphere, the odd growl, occasional tremolo picking and psychedelic lines, but the way it's all been pieced together, well it's the last thing I would have expected, and the term seems merely 'what fits best.'

Instead of trying to rely on genre terms that don't quite fit, I'll point to the one link that all those artists have in common, the atmosphere. This is really what the purpose is here, the instrumentation and techniques employed are little more than a means to an end, and it is this very specific tone that he spends the best part of an hour trying to convey that takes precedence. It's certainly got an earthen, naturalistic quality to it all; that folk-like sense of being surrounded in nature in all its wild glory, but being powerless against it's laws, all that's left is to simply sit back and admire it's beauty and let what will happen happen, accepting your fate whatever comes. There is also a sense of an underlying bleak nature, but it's never a chaotic depression or to the extreme of the overwhelming darkness presented in most Black Metal. Rather it falls again on a sense of accepting the worst and hope for the future; the light shining through the trees, offering if not answers then consolation and comfort. If all this sounds a touch religious then the ethereal and choral vocals will do little to convince you otherwise, but it's certainly like no religion I've uncovered. There is often little in the way of peaks and troughs; no slow build-ups to crescendo's, though certainly as time passes the music itself subtly shifts to present a new scene to be observed. It's remarkably consistent but also monotone, and even though I know why that this is the case, it can still present itself as being problematic at times.

There is a little understanding that's required to fully appreciate what he's trying to accomplish with this project, and when you do it all makes sense. The title literally translates as “The Voyage of the Soul,” and that does a lot to start you on your way; that there is very little variation in the album is intentional. It's a piece that I still think is perhaps better suited to the term Ambient, despite the unconventional instrumentation and style, because it's an attempt of communicating an image; a very specific location that the artist has in his mind and is trying to create and convey in his work. Without realising this it's little more than a curiosity, but with this knowledge in place it all suddenly fits; the veil is lifted and you see the work for what it really is. It may never become an album I'll play on a regular basis, but every so often, when I've had a difficult day, I'll let Alcest help whisk me away to his fantasy world filled with magic and mysticism, natural beauty, serenity, and I'll float away to the sonic vibrations. If he never releases another album under this name, it wouldn't matter. With this release he's surely accomplished his goal.

Aliases – Safer than Reality - 4/5

I've been rubbing my hands together in anticipation for this one; the triumphant return of “Pin” and his new band; the guitarist from Sikth that has been granted post-humous cult icon status on a conquest to return to the music circuit and regain his throne and take a bow before the scene that has since flourished in their wake. Up until the recently announced Sikth reformation it was amongst my most awaited releases (though I will admit a lot of this is for personal nostalgia reasons), to see if in their absence, Aliases couldn't fill a gap and provide the next best thing. It feels important to note that whilst comparisons are to be expected – they do sound remarkably similar after all – there is definitely a different spin to it all; it's almost as though Sikth and Tesseract had a love child, combining the best of Sikth's syncopated technicality and frantic growls, shifting tempo and beat patterns with reckless abandon and matched it to Tesseract's love of epic clean vocal lines and deceptive simplicity. It's complex but so damn catchy.

To illustrate my point, lately I've been having difficulty sleeping. The only thing that I could thing of that I'd been doing differently was listening to this looped on my walk home, and switching to another album quickly saw me return to normal. It's complex and fast paced, but it's also able to stick in your mind; it never feels as though complexity is the sole purpose, comfortable in laying down a comfortable groove and using gentle interludes in a manner such that it never gets so overwhelming that your brain shuts off. It's constantly engaging my mind, even if it's just a brief moment when I recognise a nice guitar riff or drum fill. In fact, it's quite debilitating; I've nearly missed buses. Even as I listen to it now, it's taken me the best part of half an hour to write this sentence because I've gotten distracted and shortly afterwards forgotten what on earth I was planning to write next. The bass lines hold their groove, the drums ferociously pummel their varied lines and the guitarists layer their lines like a crack addict walking in to find his best friend in bed with his mother. At their best this short album, clocking just under half an hour, is so unashamedly engaging, so demanding of your attention and of a quality that you have to consciously fight not to give in. It's an impressive ability, even if it means I can no longer listen to it at the bus stop.

Highlights: The Reality of Belief, The Beginning Has No End, Sirens

Intervals – The Space Between – 3.5/5
Bandcamp

It's no secret that over the past few years we've seen a dramatic rise in the proficiency of musicians, seeming to sprout out of nowhere from the depths of obscurity and demonstrating a level of competency that used to be reserved for the virtuoso's who'd spent half their lives dedicated to perfecting their craft. “Intervals,” are another example of precisely such a band; these Canadian newcomers offering this 20 minute work for free as a means to promote themselves and indeed, that's largely how I came about it, and at first it's pretty hard not to be at least mildly impressed by the wealthy of talent on display, particularly where the guitars become concerned.

The problem I have here has nothing to do with competency, but as technical proficiency has improved there is an ever growing concern that it's taken over too much of the focus, with the actual song compositions coming second fiddle. Arguably “Behold... the Arctopus” reign supreme where what's being played matters less than playing it quickly, but I can't help but get much the same impression when listening to this, though by no means anywhere near to that extent. There's remarkably little 'down time;' bearing many similarities to “Animals as Leaders,” what element they have that's amiss here is a break from the speed for something atmospheric and melodic; something catchy that manages to sink itself into your mind. There are some synths tossed around but it never really feels like anything substantial; it never feels the sci-fi element they occasionally hint at has any real core purpose, and when breakdowns occur it plays off a little like a bad Meshuggah off cut, monotonously droning on and dragging it all out until something of note actually happens. It all just gets a bit repetitive.

Particularly when there are no vocals involved, as is the case here, the music's composition has to be filled with purpose; it needs an atmosphere to promote as in “Chimp Spanner's” work; a sense of emotion or an effective line that draws the listener in. Vocals typically do an excellent job at evoking the human part of us and engage us with the music, and without them they need to pay careful attention to making sure the rest of the band is up to scratch, which strangely enough they do seem to eventually figure out. The finalé, 'Inertia,' opening up with a gentle melody that proves that when they slow things down a bit, they aren't half bad, successfully managing to find a balance between all the instruments; the complex guitar work (and not just djent riffs), technical but never jarring drumming and the synth work in the background, though it still kicks its heels and aimless bumbles along around the mid point. Before this emerged I'd have said they were a band that arrived late to the scene and added nothing new, but if they can manage to build on this then 'Intervals' may definitely be a band to watch out for in the near future.

Russian Circles - Empros - 5/5
Link

The pure energy and the miasma of emotions of masterfully composed instrumental music. If anyone is even remotely familiar with the work of Russian Circles’ work then they can testify that this band is no stranger to achieving brilliance in its compositions. And although many fans are complaining about their latest offering being not as masterful as their much acclaimed “Enter,” I believe these guys have just hit another zenith of musical expression with this album.

Don’t ask me to categorize their sound into a genre, probably the term of Post metal fits them for now but hardly do they play it with orthodoxy which - unsurprisingly - is their greatest strength. Churning out typhoon like roaring riffs alongside hammering drums and then fusing them oh so sweetly with atmospheric ambient passages has always been their forté but they do use that ability of their with much more diversity this time around. What really impresses me is their use of the bass in their heavy passages which despite the loud character of the guitars still manages to hold a pretty tight hold on the listener. There are plenty of post rock elements on display here as well though they don’t use them as extensively as they did on "Enter" which creates a much more sprawling atmosphere for their music. Don’t let that fool you though; there is enough power and emotion in the composition to let it crush you.

And as I said raw power intelligently portrayed is not the only feature of this work, if anything most of the tracks move like curves speeding up in the tempo, the loudness and the harshness at will. But no matter which direction the music moves in, the transition feels perfectly natural, not a note out of place, not an instrument trying to outshine the other. The softer moments of this album are shaped mostly around baroque like piano pieces and some mesmerizing acoustic guitar work to go with it but that description doesn’t do it justice for it combines plenty of other strange sound effects to make up the atmosphere of the album. The drumming is another impressive feature of this album, bombastic, coherent and yet none too complex for the listener. Not only does the drummer vary his pace intelligently but uses the drums to effectively darken or just energize the atmosphere, bear in mind usually I credit the pianos or the guitars for doing that.

At the end of it I may have rambled on and on and still I don’t think I have done justice in describing this album. What this work carries is just about everything in music, paying tribute to every form of emotion. Try not to worry about genres or “Enter” and just give this one a whirl.

Thy Catafalque – Rengeteg – 5/5

If you tried to name many Hungarian bands – let alone metal bands – it wouldn't surprise me if you came up at something of a loss. They don't seem to have the greatest of international presences within musical circles, at least since the days of Classical composers reigned supreme, but this is one band whose name should at least be on the tip of your tongue. Each new release sees him straying further from his blackened origins – this “band” is really just the genius vision of one man, Tamás Kátai, who performs all the instruments – and stepping deeper into the fantastical world of the Avant-Garde, but this isn't a band to bombard you with new elements every time the wind blows. Maybe they took their cues from their more experimental classical history (Hungarian composers had a habit of infusing elements of folk into their compositions), but every progression they've made up until this point has been nothing but perfectly natural, and so now that they've now come to a point in the musical abyss where the music is nigh on indescribable is to say nothing bad about the tone they've carved from themselves. It's unique and not quite like anything that came before it; it's like waking up and discovering that there's a whole new colour in the world you've never seen before, and it's nothing short of breathtaking to behold.

It certainly takes certain cues from metal – this is after all where they originated from – icy blackened growls make themselves known, the occasional blast beat and slow plodding death/doom riffs power along, though to call this a common occurrence or major feature to their sound isn't quite true. Rather the last consistent vestige that they have kept alluding to their black metal origins is the atmosphere, but even that doesn't feel the same any more. It's dark and brooding and not entirely unlike Agalloch in the manner it makes heavy use of folk tones to create a sense of nature in the music, never in a rush to make their point, or feeling no real need to race off at a blistering pace to make this bleak presence known. Clean vocals lend a theatrical, at times emotive and almost operatic quality whilst at others simply sounding simplistic and natural, lending an earthen, comforting folk like quality which despite being sung entirely in his native tongue is never anything less than inspiring.

There's a lot more to it than just this though, psychedelic effects in particular becoming an integral component to their sound. They make heavy use of electronic elements throughout the course of the album but it always contains a retro 70s vibe to it; a warbling, almost jazz inspired mellotron or organ like quality that complements the twanging guitars, playing basic but insatiably addictive melodies that too are simply dripping in psychedelia. Behind all this, what is usually considered the rhythmic section is no less important in creating their progressive compositions – progressive in that both individual tracks, and indeed the album as a whole, flows and changes emphasising the subtle changes found in the natural world rather than to further a more specific concept or story. The rhythm guitars hold a stark contrasting bass laden, oft 'death metal' tone that lends a sense of aggression or foreboding doom that the music might require, and the drum work, far from getting caught up in a habit of playing blast beats, take a lot of inspiration from jazz drumming and it's philosophy of making sure that you never play the same beat for more than a few seconds before breaking into some sort of fill, ever changing and despite being entirely programmed can often find itself being one of the most stellar musical presences.

There are a lot of elements that can be said to have gone into fabricated this piece but don't go mistaking it for inaccessible or trying to include multiple genres for the sole purpose of sounding different; everything comes together so beautifully that it's hard not to be overwhelmed. There is a sense of grandiose majesty in the melodies and atmosphere's it all conjures, and that cover image is more than just for show; that is in a nutshell the atmosphere you'll find within this pre-packaged fantastical musical voyage. Dark and dangerous but also something to be respected and admired; beautiful, magical, mystical, occasionally romantic, often hallucinatory, and filled with wonders we may never come to fully understand. Rengeteg is masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Highlights: Fekete mezők, Vashegyek, Tar Gallyak Végül

Uneven Structure – Februus – 4/5

Ram-Zet - Neutralized - 4.5/5

You'd think with my love of the Avant-Garde that any metal band that feels compelled to name the man responsible for the didgeridoo lines would grab my attention, yet somehow these guys I managed to miss. In case you missed out on this genre, Avant-Garde largely means little more than 'its a little bit weird' metal. Often they're so unique that half-joking long descriptors become the norm, either devised themselves like Alamaailman Vasarat's 'kebab-kosher-traffic-punk-film music,' or by others like my own description of Diapsiquir and their 'Frenchman-on-LSD-Ranting-About-the-Ills-of-Modern-Man' metal. Bringing me pleasantly to the matter of Ram-Zet and their 'anything goes' brand of metal.

The core is undeniably metal, but I mean that in all its vague glory; metal but you can't quite figure out what kind, other than its hard, heavy and makes you want to bang your head. Doom overtones, blackened interludes and neo-classical solo's amidst what only be described as a plethora of flourishes. Taking centre stage are the female vocalist transitioning between the burlesque, almost 'Stolen Babies' lines and perhaps more conventional Nightwish cloned faux-operatic. If nothing more you can consider this a “Gothic” metal band where the band never has nothing to do. Acoustic quasi-flamenco pieces counteract the fuzzy blackened tremolo riffs and Chthonic-esque high pitched growls, doom like slow bass lines and aforementioned shredded solo's mixed up with the occasional jazz fusion noodling. There's tribal atmospheres, 16th century classical lines amidst a very noise rock backing; Meshuggah like djent tones make things sound nice and complex to break out from and show something on the opposite side of the spectrum; “Addict” opens like a Frank Klepacki piece only to evolve and mutate over the course of the next thirty seconds. Like I said, it really is 'anything goes,' and with such a crisp production that allows every element to ring out loud and proud, it becomes more than a little exciting from an album as you never quite know what they'll break out next.

But these influences are fleeting flourishes; sprinkles atop the main dessert to lend it a little flavour, and whilst it does that well, it does little to hide that the meat doesn't always quite live up to those same hopes. Certainly, these flourishes never feel out of context, and are never around for longer than a few moments to really make too much of an issue even if they were, but in order to make so many styles fit the metal being played needs to be fairly accommodating as a result, and as Shakespeare would say, 'there's the rub.' None of the musicians are bad at wielding their weapon but rather the compositions themselves feel somewhat basic at the albums start, merely using metal as a platform for their little diversions; a glue to keep the coherency together. The overarching compositions for each track grows stronger as the album progresses, seeming to lose their inhibitions that prevented them from hurtling headfirst into the next passage and 'embracing the Avant-Garde' as it were, but it takes it's time to get moving. It doesn't invoke a strong sense of atmosphere or aggression until the final half of the album, and it's all remarkably catchy but it still brings up questions on its replayability. Certainly, at first it's exciting, twisting and turning and kicking up new idea's left right and centre, but when you've learnt the track and its diversions, all that's left is a lot of instruments playing rather basic lines. You might not still be listening to it years down the line, but it might take you month's before you learn the tracks well enough to remember what's just around the corner.

Highlights: Beautiful Pain, To Ashes

Dakrya – Crime Scene – 3/5

It never ceases to amaze me how important geographical location can have on determining a band's success, and sadly for these Greeks they find themselves in the wrong country to get their music known; a “Stolen Babies” comparison finds itself more than a little justified, taking a theatrical, gothic, dark cabaret approach to their material that finds itself often sounding a little like a nursery rhyme from hell, evil clowns smiling vindictively as the happy tones bely the overwhelming darkness that occurs in the background. And with the same man responsible for producing Diablo Swing Orchestra's debut you could expect a plethora of alternative instruments to find its way to the forefront, but not enough does in the end; that almost 'Tim Burton's Circus of Horrors' use of xylophones adding it's final touches to the proceedings in the opening track never making itself known throughout the album as it could.

In fact, for all the members it feels as though there's so much wasted talent. It all feels fairly conventional in it's use of guitars and bass forming the main framework, doing little more than supplying a rhythm with flourishes of other elements adding flavour. There's so much more that could be done with the musicians at their disposal, not in the least the fact there are three vocalists, two female and one male, and yet for all the theatrical chaos they could create with overlapping guitar lines, bantering between one another, it is the lead woman that dominates over so much of the proceedings. It's all just a touch bland and too content to sit on their basic compositions; a simple guitar riff breaking off for a basic keyboard riff to maintain a rather thin feeling backing; occasionally they'll transition to something more inspired for a moment but it won't be long before they return right back to the source of the problem.

But after all, my major gripe remains that it feels just a little too much like Stolen Babies; Avant-Garde to me is all about pushing boundaries of convention and coming up with something that no other artist can compare to. That it often feels so similar is a disappointing fact only compensated by the fact that this is the closest thing to a second Stolen Babies album I've come across, and in that respect it doesn't do too bad a job of a more guitar-centric, less schizophrenic interpretation of their Dark Cabaret influenced brand of Avant-Garde. There's nothing specifically wrong with it all, I just can't see myself returning to it any time soon.

Highlights: The Charlatans, Phantasmagoria