Paradise Lost Tragic Idol 2012

When hearing Paradise Lost, what actually we expected from them? Are we keep their nostalgic Gothic and Shades of God, the doom metal era as our benchmark? Or the Draconian Times and Icon era? My cup of tea is the later. Twenty years ago, Icon and Draconian Times were the album that stood very high above their era that these twin album still give me a very strong Gothic feeling right until now. So, when Paradise Lost announced their 2012 album Tragic Idol, these two memorable albums feeling are what I expected the most. Let not discuss their 'lost' era, in between Draconian Time until now.

Tragic Idol is an interesting album with mixed feeling. This album is so demanding that I feel extreme need to write a detail review here. So before we started I will concluded it first that Tragic Idol is so far their best offering that return to their respective two eras we identified before.

Solitary One, the opening song, started with interesting lick we immediately welcome to Paradise Lost music. The one sentence per vocal line is a hundred percent return and trade mark of Paradise Lost, or Nick Holmes vocal. The feeling is immediately in Icon era. What we got as compromise here is the howling backing vocals and the ping pong keyboard accentuation, we should understand this as Paradise Lost need of new sound.

 Crucify is one of interesting point here. After the doom intro, suddenly we un-expected have the 'catchy' riff with a brief of heavy metal grooving here. It's heavy and blistering guitar solos decorated all the way.

Fear of Impending Hell, the intro, the acoustic and clean vocal followed, this song quite successful bring us back to the nostalgic Icon era. Something with Honesty in Death.

Theories from Another World, is by far their most complexes, or should I say, complicated composition. It is a double pedal drum with thrash metal riff. Doom metal vocal but with a vocal line a bit utilizing death metal scale. Maybe one of most unexpected Paradise Lost song here.

In This We Dwell, is another surprise, Paradise Lost gone a bit with power metal scale riff and galloping chops. 

To The Darkness is another awesome intro and song. It return to Gothic feel, dark and heavier. This then break in Tragic Idol and Worth Fighting For, which are classic return to their sound.  The Glorious End, despite its blitz guitar lick intro, it is another doom feel song that perfectly close the album.

So, is this an album more about the past than about creating new sound? Dunno, but Paradise Lost has success in rising nostalgic in every track. All the songs are cleverly composed. The only thing made them "new" I think is the drumming part, all the rest pretty much return to their classic sound. I would say this is another surprising above performance by the veteran band in this 2012 year. Completely a must have album for Paradise Lost admirers.

Metal Harem class: ******** 8 stars out of 10

Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol 2012

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01. Solitary One
02. Crucify
03. Fear Of Impending Hell
04. Honesty In Death
05. Theories From Another World
06. In This We Dwell
07. To The Darkness
08. Tragic Idol
09. Worth Fighting For
10. The Glorious End

Bonus tracks (Limited Edition)
01. Ending Through Changes
02. Never Take Me Alive (Spear Of Destiny cover version)

Line-up

Nick Holmes - vocals
Greg Mackintosh - lead guitar
Aaron Aedy - rhythm guitar
Steve Edmondson - bass guitar
Adrian Erlandsson - drums

Paradise Lost artistic cover art for Tragic Idol - graphic design by Valnoir.

DragonForce The Power Within 2012

DragonForce is one of that few (power) metal band that talked loud outside our little shell of world. Even my 10 years nephew listen to them, one day I was on a check in desk in the airport of Jakarta and the very ordinary ticketing girl played “Through the Fire and Flames” with her phone. This achievement is in a good sense. In such fortune situation , there were also exist those who constantly opposed their achievement. Most because of their extreme fast song that raise doubt on their technical ability. But by the time tells, they need no such fancy tricks as they are all authentically hand created music. With this I like the band even more as they survive the hardest doubt in the industry and keep metal on.

The Power Within is their next offering for 2012. The issue on this album is, DragonForce parted way with original singer ZP and their replacement is dude Marc Hudson. Hudson’s character is closely match the original one and this let the album experience only slight tuning for old time listener. As usual duo Herman Li Kan Ming and Sam Totman is the one of the feature here.

The first track Holding On is sort of introduction to the new singer. The music from this point is exactly what we know about Dragonforce. Not much surprises. Those who expected a shredding show along a catchy, chessy, crunchy power metal song need not to worry. The two following songs Fallen World and Cry Thunder are easily to spot as their main menu in this album. In fact, Cry Thunder had been release prior and serve as their great mouthwatering track. Surprise, this is a song where they not doing a 300bpm double bass drum, they sounds really nice in Cry Thunder. There is also a live version of Cry Thunder in the vinyl version for comparison. DragonForce understand that some other menu need to be spice in. Wings of Liberty, Last Man Stands and the acoustic version of Season are the bits need to remedy the ear. The bottom track actually calm down most of the atmosphere and telling that all previous metal is enough. The last sort of epilogue done by instrumental track Avant La Tempete. Closing in another DragonForce chapter.

Accompanied keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov and drummer Dave Mackintosh are among the most technical personil within to support the DragonForce madness. Together of course the bassist Frederic Leclercq who sometimes stealth in on his lower frequency. So there we still got the dragon slaying song with Mario Bros licks. Awesome and enjoyful album by DragonForce.

Updated: DragonForce has release a video about "The Making of The Power Within", it is a three episodes Youtube video, you can watch it from Episode One here.

Metal Harem class: ********* 9 stars out of 10

DragonForce - The Power Within 2012
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1. "Holding On" 4:56
2. "Fallen World" 4:09
3. "Cry Thunder" 5:17
4. "Give Me the Night" 4:29
5. "Wings of Liberty" 7:22
6. "Seasons" 5:05
7. "Heart of the Storm" 4:44
8. "Die by the Sword" 4:26
9. "Last Man Stands" 5:12
10. "Seasons (Acoustic Version)" 4:26

 Digital and vinyl bonus tracks
1. "Cry Thunder (Live Rehearsal)" 5:13
2. "Heart of the Storm (Alternative Chorus Version)" 4:41
3. "Avant La Tempête (Instrumental)" 2:01

The Power Within Cover ARt and graphic design

Dreamscape - Everlight 2012

Dreamscape is a progressive metal band from Munich, Germany. (source: Wikipedia... lol). Ok, I know little about this band but their coming up album is a good one. Dreamscape Everlight is by comparison something like Dream Theater on their Six Degree era combine with Ayreon outer space atmosphere. What good in Dreamscape is their diligent song writing. Each of songs on this album are carefully written. This also make the album somewhat a serious work that need to carefully listen a few more spin. Their opening track Final Dawn, an instrumental is an ambient overture, seriously taking us to the first progressive metal song we got here, Restless. This followed by Led Astray are dark feeling atmosphere.

Keep holding on your breath because up until the exhausting A Matter of Time Transforming, the band keep pushing the edge of their musicability. Tons of shreds of guitar and keyboards to prove they need more world attention. Things only got more relax and a changing of atmosphere from One, where they explore more into the light side of music. The Calm Before the Storm is the ice breaking instrumental there.

This album packaged with bags of new progressive tricks. Surely a new progressive material that can stand high until the end of 2012.

Metal Harem class: ******* 7 stars out of 10

Dreamscape - Everlight 2012
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01. Final Dawn
02. Restless
03. Led Astray
04. Fortune and Fate
05. The Violet Flame Forever
06. A Matter of Time Transforming
07. One
08. The Calm Before the Storm
09. Refugium in Db-Major
10. A Mental Journey
11. Breathing Spaces
12. Everlight


Line-up
Francesco Marino - vocals
David Bertok - keyboards
Wolfgang Kerinnis - guitar
Danilo Batdorf - drums
Ralf Schwager - bass
Arno Menses - guest vocals
Erik "Ez" Blomkvist - guest vocals
Herbie Langhans - guest vocals
Dilenya Mar - guest vocals
Mike DiMeo - guest vocals
Nando Fernandez - guest vocals
Oliver Hartmann - guest vocals
Roland Stoll - guest vocals

Dreamscape Cover Art and Design for Everlight Album

Dream Theater Jakarta and Singapore Tour

Progressive metal mega band, Dream Theater to hit South East Asia in this month. It will start with a tour to Jakarta ,21st April 2012. Quote from many promoting website:

Dream Theater’s James LaBrie formation (vocals), John Myung (bass), John Petrucci (guitar), Mike Portnoy (drums), and Jordan Rudess (keyboards) will be a concert in Jakarta on April 21, 2012 in Eagle Eye International Stadium on the beach Carnival Ancol, North Jakarta.

This concert is a concert series entitled World Tour 2012 A Tour Of Dramatic Events as their eleventh album, and Indonesia was chosen as the only country in Southeast Asia. Before Indonesia, Dream Theater will visit Seoul, South Korea, on April 19, 2012, which is the country of origin of parents bassist John Myung, Indonesia 21 April 2012 and in Japan with four concert performances.

the link for poster :

link to event organizer here

After Jakarta, Singapore will be the next destination on May 2nd, 2012. The poster:

link to event organizer here

Jeff Loomis Plains of Oblivion 2012

For fans of shredding metal, here another piece for celebration. Plains of Oblivion (curiously if this any reference to Elder Scroll series?) is out now, a solo instrumental, a shred album by Jeff Loomis.

Jeff Loomis now is a free guitarist without his glorious band Nevermore. With this in mind, we hope for a better prepared solo album, but as my first spin of this long waited CD, the expectation is a little bit blur. Mostly because Jeff once again put more emphasized on the song's heavy-ness rather than went to my melodious comfort zone. As in his previous solo, Zero Order Phase, this album marked a very fast song, fast drum and the shredding is naturally went fast. Out of this, one can not expected a sweet or power metal-neo classical style of shredding here. This is perhaps match with Jeff's Nevermore background.

The present of multi shredding stars here is one of the highlight. Marty Friedman open with Mercurial, for what Marty is, the exotic scales master seems not went well with Jeff's fast song here. Something forced, imho. For The Ultimatum, Tony MacAlpine is an all around shredder and which is quite okay with the song. Jeff exclusively done the next Escape Velocity, but the vocalized songs, Tragedy And Harmony is, again I didn't quite grab the anything special here. The other star to highligh is Chris Poland's track Continuum Drift, which is done in somewhat Chris style in his solo Return of Metalopolis , which is one of my favorite track. There is also presence Norwegian's all round composer/guitarist Ihsahn, but again his track Surrender with death metal singing style is not very much cup of me.

Nevertheless, plenty of shredding to enjoy here. Obviously the style in this album a little bit outside my comfort zone, but fans of Nevermore and progressive instrumental will enjoy the most here.

Jeff Loomis - Plains of Oblivion 2012
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1. "Mercurial" (featuring Marty Friedman)
2. "The Ultimatum" (featuring Tony MacAlpine)
3. "Escape Velocity"  
4. "Tragedy And Harmony" (featuring Christine Rhoades)
5. "Requiem For The Living" (featuring Attila Vörös)
6. "Continuum Drift" (featuring Chris Poland)
7. "Surrender" (featuring Ihsahn)
8. "Chosen Time" (featuring Christine Rhoades)
9. "Rapture"  
10. "Sibylline Origin"

Jeff Loomis Plains of Oblivion

Accept Stalingrad 2012

This is yet another consecutive awesome heavy metal album coming up this week from a veteran band. To make thing sort, Accept’s newest release Stalingrad is a simply grad A heavy metal album. After gone into hiatus for most of 1990s and 2000s, in 2010 Accept did a comeback album Blood of the Nations, this album got a Metalstorm award. But for those who think they can’t be any higher, here come Stalingrad.

Hung, Drawn and Quartered is an epic opening, and then we go into marathon of metal at its best, Stalingrad, Hellfire, Flash to Bang Time all passed without problem.  Shadow Soldiers breaks in with a slow tempo anthem and its minor standard riffing make it sounds like nobody else have using this awesome riff before. Twist of Fate is the only resting point in the album. Mark Tornillo second attempt with Accept is now really accepted and begin to start their second landmark era outside Udo reigns.


Overall the sound differed little from Blood of the Nations, the improvement is mostly in song composition rather than style. It's a must have album for any heavy metal. Stalingrad set another standard for returning veteran band to show off their music to their younger generation.

Metal Harem class: ******** 8 stars out of 10

Accept - Stalingrad 2012

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1. Hung, Drawn and Quartered

2. Stalingrad

3. Hellfire

4. Flash to Bang Time

5. Shadow Soldiers

6. Revolution

7. Against the World

8. Twist of Fate

9. The Quick and the Dead

10. Never Forget (bonus track)

11. The Galley

Mark Tornillo - Lead vocals

 Wolf Hoffmann - Guitar

 Herman Frank - Guitar

Peter Baltes - Bass guitar

Stefan Schwarzmann - Drums

Accept Stalingrad Album Cover Art

Medius Burns Going Down 2012

I was researching about Medius, a young metalcore / groove metal band from San Diego. Their social network campaign has reaching me and that’s how I ended up spinning their music. Their build up image are great so far and site is informative.

Having less listen to the genre, my lucky experience was with '90s Pantera, and this album sounding quickly remind me of them. The first song Abscess started with more thrashy riff, but soon the vocal dictate their metal orientation. Fans of Biohazard or Lamb of God will also welcome this menu. Big Stick is the second offering, a heavier and more death metal feel keep coming. Filicide start with rather heavy metal in a second but then switch more Pantera-ish this time. All good menu so far till In Visions ushered in the next track, Neo Surgery, a fast and even brutal piece to take. Spine is also need to mentioned for its interesting slightly complex intro and groove.

Then the whole album is basically a completed metal experience what we needed. The genre’s elements, groove, thrash and metal core, best represented on this debut album with bit of spice here and there. Colourful guitar work and mostly a great vocal introduced here. For fans of Pantera, Biohazard and Lamb of God, this is a great album to be recognize by this great newcomer.

Medius Burns Going Down 2012

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01. Abscess 03:38
02. Big Stick 04:27
03. Filicide 04:54
04. In Visions 00:58
05. Neurosurgery 03:38
06. Outthrust 03:38
07. Spine 04:25
08. War Cry 02:51
09. Wrecking Crew 04:36
10. The Way 02:51

personil

Spencer Blair - vocals

Trevor "Natty" Blair - guitars

Mike Cook - bass

Chris Dunlea - drums

Medius official banner and album cover art design