DMJGH 21: Janus Schlafende Hunde

And now for something completely different.: Janus. We have here a mix of Gothic, Industrial some female vocals and some heavy guitars. Still I like this release from 2000 a lot and on a day like today: when autumn switches to winter, predictions for tomorrow's trainride to work are hellish and fevers are running through the house nothing beats a depressive concept album in the German language.

Sometimes a language mixes really nice with certain music. In Brazil I discovered some bands who told full books in each song and instruments were only background and this made sense. Some Scandinavian progressive rock (Landberk to name but one) sounds very nice with the melancholy all around. And coming to German this style of music fits the music perfectly. With songtitels like Kommt Herunter, Unter dem Eis, Klotz am Bein the atmosphere is to me already described. For those of you who don't master the German language, just learn Dutch. On a bad day you end up understanding Deutsch.

The story is about two brothers falling in love with the same girl Veronica ( In Dutch a television channel in German a prostitute, so be careful when taking the language course tip from above serious) There is murder there are flashbacks, there is lack of understanding and quite some attention  needed by me to follow the storyline. Does not really matter if I miss out on details, since the music is what counts. Ok the gothic and industrial parts are pretty dominant, but what makes this such a good album, is the occassional outburst of heavy guitars. Trying to describe the CD I am finding that probably what I like most about it is the fact that I have nothing similar to this.

After this release I bought another CD by Janus, which was nice enough but not meeting their masterpiece, which I can only assume this is. Than we come to yet again the same final question. When the bombastic Rammstein (I only know some clips and have no CD's) can move Fortarock festival from a 7000 people venue to a Football stadium next year, why is this much better band not even able to fill a small club in Holland and hard to trace on the internet. Verdammter Geschmack der Massen.

DMJGH 20: Non Fiction - It's A Wonderful Lie

Sometimes playing an old CD leads to another one and before you know it you bump into a candidate for DMJGH. Last Saturday I listened again to Autumn Hour, the last output (2010) I have with Singer par excellence Alan Tecchio. By hearing his great voice I switched to Hades, one of the best ever techmetal bands (or where they called speed-, thrash- or just Heavy metal at the time?). Alan Tecchio has this great range from the high screams to the aggressive low vocals, but always very melodic and heavy at the same time. Live I saw him with Watchtower when Het Paard in my hometown still programmed great bands and once as support band of Savatage in the infamous "Scum" in Katwijk with this lot: Non Fiction.

Watchtower released an all time Classic album with Mr. Tecchio on vocals, Hades whole collection should have been heard by millions, but never was and Autumn Hour shows again that his lyrics usually are away from cliches and show some concern with our planet, life or social circumstances. Seven Witches I've only heard but do not have on CD and Non Fiction is defintely the slowest band in his carreer, while at the same time probably the heaviest as well. Here we get 17 songs in 52 minutes, which includes several shorter instrumentals, some mid tempo work and bass driven slow moving machines like "Reasons" or "Picture Imperfect". Amongst this diverse collection happens to be also one of the most catchy opening riffs and vocal  melodies ever written jointly: Sad & Done.

In comes  Mr. Dan Lorenzo. Also from Hades/Non-Fiction and co-writer of most of the album and guitarist who knows how to write a good riff (see the Hades Anthology for proof) This album does not evolve around one song only (number 11 would be a strange place anyway), but this song is highly recommended to hear at least once. The booklet mentions for this song also credits to bass player Kevin Bolembach. I do not know how the writing occured but do know that whenever I hear this song back the opening lines are sung along out loud or just in my mind:

"Oh let me cry on your shoulder cause my backbone is broke, I used to try to be bold but that was such a joke" and right they are.

Alan Reed - First in a Field of One

In these times where due to recent purchases I am very much exploring modern-technical-death-metal-like bands and return to my younger days during the rise (and fall?) of NWOBHM. This CD brings balance and can be played  at home without a headphone or comments.

Alan Reed the voice of Pallas, untill some years ago and then there were two. Last year in a fairly short time span I was lucky enough to see the renewed Pallas who became, much to my liking, even more hard rocking as well  as Alan Reed solo during the illustrous Mattfest in The Peel. Alan was still suffering from his unvoluntary departure from Pallas and emotions  looked pretty similar as if his longtime girlfriend  just broke up with him.During the song Darkness has Spoken some of his emotions are described with words as cold, hate, lost control, vengeance, disbelief. Luckily the last line is "The Darkness has gone".

Hopefully Alan is at peace with himself and his past, because he just offered us eight great songs with celtic, acustic flavour and always leaning on still one of the best voices in progressive rock. Musically he is helped out by Mike Stobbie on keyboards and Scott Higham on drums. Some additional work from to me better known Christina Booth (Magenta) on vocals and Kalle Walner (RPWL, Blind Ego) and Jeff Green on guitar. So I hope this band comes to de Boerderij and Jeff Green joins, giving me the chance to shakes hands with the guitarist that I had short email exchanges with over shared emotions and experiences beautifully expressed on his album Jessica.

After seeing Pallas and Alan Reed I already mentioned on my then Dutch blog that we the audience might end up as winners getting two different good bands coming out of one. Now that I own XXV and First in a Field of One I can only state that I was right. Long life unjustice and musical differences.

The Haarp Machine - Disclosure

Advantages of being modern: You stay open for new trends,  accept grunting and screaming as decent forms of singing and suddenly a wide stream of modern bands are very listenable. I have discovered several great new bands recently, who are in one way or another hanging inbetween Djent, Progressive, Extreme and another 20 styles ( I won't use Sumerian Core called after the label). Stealing Axion (how did they end up at Inside Out Label, being far heavier than 99% of their releases??) released an interesting album in Moments. Than I bumped into Intrinsic by The Contortionist. When Aardschok mentions in their review that you must love Rush and Dream Theater in order to appreciate them and style breaks are happening every other second I start surfing the net. It's one of the beauties of today that with Youtube, Bandcamp, Myspace etc. you can quickly get some songs on your PC. Very different indeed, but I can only recommend on YouTube their clip of opener Holomovement. What a great song that is.

And now I discovered Disclosure by The Haarp Machine. Bought last of the three and heard less, but probably the best of them all. Where they start with a contradictioness winner is the short playing time. This is very intensive music. You need a series of headphone listening sessions before the music lands in the brain. Stealing Axion over one hour is a lot and The Contortionist with their 45 minute release already comes closer. By keeping their CD at 33 minutes like the greatest bands in the Tech extreme corner (Cynic and Atheist) The Haarp Machine make sure that the attention can be kept from start to finish.

Opening instrument on the CD is a Sitar, when this changes into a Heavy bombastic opener followed by a blasting Death metal passage relief is the best word to describe the feeling. Next to a Sitar also a Koto (a what?) is mixed in the music, but never to extends that annoy. Actually it adds flavour to the very diverse music. So what do we get on vocals. A range from pretty heavy vox to a clean vocal that is very good with the music. Similar for the music, we move from extreme bashing to soft progressive instrumental passages. For those of us who can't get over extreme vocals (almost everyone I know) should try the album closer Machine Over. If under the impression slowly find more songs and maybe it sticks.

I read on their facebook page, that they shall play Tilburg in March during the Neurotic Death Fest. Since I get an ever growing collection of technical death metal bands and definitely would like to see these songs live I might decide to pick one, two or three days of this festival for a change. Eyes on the band announcements and ears on Disclosure.

DMJGH 19: The Last Things - Circles and Butterflies

Sometimes memory is short and needs to be helped out by a small walk through the CD collection. Today I ran into Circles and Butterflies by Progmetallers The Last Things while doing so and remembered that upon release in 1993 it hardly left my CD player . When listening to it again I did what I do in similar cases: check the internet if they still exist or released more albums and read what has been written about them in the best and most complete book ever written on progressive metal: Mean Deviation. First discovery was that for some reason Jeff Wagner missed out on them in Mean Deviation (still the book is an absolute must-read for any progmetal fan though). I thought some important missionary work was waiting for me, but on Progarchives and the Metal Archives they are mentioned and some information can be found.

First name I recognized in the CD booklet was guitarist Matt Laporte who passed away last year and recently became known for his work with Jon Oliva. Here he was last to join the band and does not seem to be one of the writers of the album. Bass Player Darren Mc Farland played live with Atheist (an influence in some of the heaviest passages of the album) while drummer Lou Buffo and Richard Elliot vocals and many instruments came from predecessor Blackkout.

The album starts with six interlinked songs and the highlight of this album. Starting with Inside the Circle until The Circle Ends we get a range from technical trash metal, prog metal, ballads and progressive rock ending in an impressive instrumental piece. While hearing this back a smile came up and I remembered why this probably appeared in my 1993 end of year lists at a very decent position.The five songs following this suite can't completely keep the high standard, but still show a wide range of influences, instruments and very listenable songs. If there is a criticism on this album it would be that the production and general sound of the album could be better. I do not know if in 1993 this was a valid comment, but today it sounds like needing an upgrade in heaviness.

The good news for interested readers is that the Greek label Arkeyn Steel Records re-released this album last year, with an additional demo from 1994 and a DVD from a Blackkout live in 1990. With big bands in our genre I tend to have the feeling they should be so much bigger already. For bands like The Last Things matters are even worse, risking to be forgotten while the quality is here and subsequent albums could have lifted them to the topleague culminating in a slot at Progpower Europe.

Fates Warning - ECI Cultuurfabriek Roermond 11 November 2012

I had never been to ECI Cultuurfabriek, first because it is not nearly close to my home and second I do not know how long they are transferred into this setting for film, shows and bars. Cultuurfabriek is Dutch and stands for Culture factory: and a factory it is. Upon arrival signs tell me that my car will be tugged away and finding the entrance is also not as simple as it sounds, but inside the place looks very nice. Since the hall was not yet opened upon my arrival I had a Dutch culinair highlight in the bar Broodje Kroket with a beer. Soon I found out that the informed start of 1800 hrs on the internet would not be met. When some half hour later the reserved table in the corner turned out to be reserved for dinner by Fates Warning a quick calculation made it clear that I would not return home in time to see the last 15 minutes of Fluminense's championship match. When fifteen minutes later also the support band entered for dinner even the after match interviews went down the drain. I guess that is where my part of rock and roll lifestyle begins and ends I sometimes have to drive 200 km home and miss planned schedules. Question is if I would have taken the drive also if I knew that the band would start at 20:30 instead of 18:00 hrs. Of Course I would, We are talking Fates Warning here: Founders of the progmetal genre and owners of the best back catalogue there is around.

So before the show started at 20:30 we were warmed up by local band SpiralCove. That band was nice enough, but in my view (read the drive home) not really necessary. Before Fates Warning started one could already conclude that yet again the place was far too empty for the class of the band. After my recent visits to Lillian Axe, Headspace/Haken and Leprous, this seems unfortunately enough to become the norm. Very sad indeed and how are these bands ever able to continue bringing us the music we love. Since Hans and Mary decided to see the Hengelo show two days earlier I already knew that over there it was pretty much the same. So on behalf of myself a deep apology to the bands that play for half empty places. Crisis? Too many shows? Too little time, whatever the excuse I hope matters shall improve.

But I shall not complain, since to me everytime I get the chance of seeing Fates Warning play live to me is Another Perfect Day. Main problem for their shows is that they have too many good songs to fit in one and a half hour. I would love to see them doing a Marillion type of weekend where they play three nights in a row all different songs, but too small audiences and the number of lyrics shall make this impossible to happen any day soon. The set opened with the proven succesfull trio Disconnected/One/Life in Still Water. But as from A  Pleasant Shade of Gray Part III the set became slightly new and a very good APSOG medley was played. Interesting to see that a Dutch audience was not tempted to sing Zugabe along. and ending by the heavy part XI I actually hoped for the beautifull part XII to end the medley. Unfortunately this was not the case and show build-up explained why, since the epic of all Progmetal epics the Eleventh Hour came next. This would not fit well after part XII and is probably their only song I would really hate to miss in a live set..With the automatic Point of View following it became time for their new song. Earlier this year I was in lucky enough to be in Sao Paulo on the legendary  14 April show (due to Mike Portnoy participation and even more due to Queensryche's cooling down show after their blast) I never saw as many camera's filming the full show as on that evening. This night in Roermond it was the opposite. Whenever a camera appeared a lightflash took care that the filming stopped. Main reason would be their new song Firefly. This seemed a pretty heavy song, but as usual shall need some listens before sinking in. But the best news is that a new album now certainly seems to be coming our way and already curious if it shall be another Classic Album or just very very good.
Around this time in the show and increasing bassy zoom started taking part of the show. I could still enjoy whatever note was played, but especialy the crew got upset and the band must have been disturbed in a way as well ("What's going on?") We did get more great songs with some hits (Eye too Eye, Another Perfect Day) and some surpises (Ivory Tower, Island in the Stream) Closer was Still Remains and off they went after this very short European Tour.

A word of thanks to Roger, who according to the band was responsible for them coming over. Hopefully by now they are back in the studio already and the new album is released somewhere first half 2013. That would make them the perfect headliner for Progpower 2013 promoting new songs to a larger crowd..

Fluminense Tetracampeao

Fluminense Brazilian Champions 2012!

While I was expecting a championships party next week and enjoyed an evening of Progmetal Epics with Fates Warning (review following later this week), Fluminense grabbed their 4th national title away against Palmeiras.
I became Tricolor in 1997 soon after my arrival in Rio. Living through the dark years with relegation to second and third division I took part in the cult years when the support grew by time. The last years Fluminense returned to win national titles and since I was preparing a party for next week only, herewith repeating some pictures from the 2010 Championship weekend. Next Sunday the official party shall be at home against Cruzeiro an dthe Fluminense flag shall be waiving proudly before my house again.
"Sou tricolor de coracao"