Summary Judgments, Volume 4

Bags

Sometimes, it's just not my bag. Sometimes, I've already got a bag like it, and I'm happy with that. Sometimes, it's a bag of shit.

As always, the X out of Y songs tells you how far I made it into the record before shelving it.

Persefone: Spiritual Migration (2013)
(5 out of 13 songs)

I haven't read the site in a couple years, but I bet the guys over at MetalSucks absolutely shit their pants over Persefone. It's very high-quality prog-metal with (synthesized) symphonic elements, like a heavier version of Symphony X (or to a lesser extent, Dream Theater). I'm not so much into that kind of thing anymore, but this was good enough to hook me for a while anyway. The thing that eventually turned me off was, I can hear how much these guys are a part of the metalcore generation. They have some of the rhythms I hate from metalcore, and the vocals (both clean and harsh) are right out of that school of metal. I'm just too old for this, but for what it is--it's pretty awesome.

Vesen: This Time It's Personal (2012)

This Time It's Impaled Nazarene

Guest review by Metallattorney. He is the law.

What a ridiculous album title. Seriously, this is the kind of thing you would expect from some Nickelback clone or rap artist, but for a long-running blackened/thrash metal band, it comes off as juvenile and embarrassing.

The first track kind of continues with a little bit of this juvenile style. It's much more of a teaser for the album as a whole with the band building in intensity toward the very end. The vocals are presented in a layered format which gives off the impression that they are actually yelling at the listener. So subtlety appears not to be Vesen's strong suit at this point.

Tombstones: Year of the Burial (2012)

Wizard, Without Electricity

Jus Oborn totally pulls off the silk scarf. Wearing it, the Electric Wizard mastermind looks like an eccentric cult leader from the 1960's or a Satanic bon vivant. It doesn't hurt that he's surrounded by people who look like Anton LaVey, Jinx Dawson, and a dude that's going to do the hands-on part of a human sacrifice. They look like some kind of comic book supervillain ensemble. In a promo photo, Norway's Tombstones is apparently trying to pull of the same thing. One of them--presumably frontman Bjørn-Viggo Godtland--is trying the silk scarf look. But he comes off like he just disembarked from his yacht. And the other two look like unremarkable, regular metal dudes. I don't ordinarily bring up image, but I mention this comparison for a reason.