I don’t know when to stop…

Basically, I’m incredibly busy. Two musical projects + maintaining high grades + sports + too many extracurricular activities + some personal problems = stress. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s a challenge but it’s one I’ve brought upon myself and one I feel I’m able to cope with. That being said, I don’t make it easy for myself either.

Despite spending a lot of time with Lifting Shadows and working on a full LP for Static Light I’ve decided it would be a good idea to start yet another musical project. Because you know, two totally wasn’t enough. No name yet but it’s shaping up to be a weird ass fusion including elements of black metal, melodic death metal, punk, and of course a tad of prog and experimentation thrown on top for good measure. I think I have a three piece band already. A friend and member of Static Light on bass, the first drummer of Lifting Shadows on the kit, and yours truly on the guitar. Of course I have the same problem as Lifting Shadows in that absolutely no one sings. Not only do I need a singer, I now need two singers…but that’s a problem for later.

This is all still in a early phase, it might crumble within a few days but I’ve already started writing some material and all three of us seem genuinely interested in it. It’ll be interesting to see what will come of this. Like my other projects, I’ll post updates here as they happen and if it looks like this will be a serious project, I’ll add a page to the blog.

Also, I’m nearing 1000 hits to this blog. I would like to thank everyone who has visited my blog I had no idea when starting it if I would even hit 100 after a few years!

REVIEW: “Dark Thrones and Black Flags” (Darkthrone)

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a whole lot about the genre of black metal. I’ve only recently begun to get into it, and I’ve only scratched the surface. One of the bands that I’ve started to listening to, and have liked a lot, is Darkthrone. They are responsible for genre classics like “Transilvanian Hunger” (my personal favorite black metal album as of now). However, it seems that a lot of black metal fans are obsessed with how “true” a band is to the raw black metal sound. If a band even hints at incorporating other genres into the sound or if an album has good production it is likely to be criticized. So when Darkthrone recently began to incorporate a lot of punk influences into their sound, they started to receive a bit of backlash.

I’m not one of these “true black metal” elitists, so I came into this new Darkthrone album with an open I mind. The album begins great, the first track of “Dark Thrones and Black Flags” appearing to be a throwback to some of their earlier songs. The modern Darkthrone sound comes back into play with the second track. This isn’t bad however, because the song simply rocks. “Oath Minus” is filled with some killer riffs and a nice solo too.

The quality continues throughout the album. The music sounds fairly fresh and interesting, which is certainly important with a band that has been around now for two decades. Darkthrone gives off the impression that they don’t really care what people think of their music, or how successful they are, and that they are simply making the music they like. I think this is important and I’m disappointed how a lot of metal bands seem to lack this attitude.

While there’s no bad song on the album, I feel the quality dips a bit near the end of the album. Nevertheless, it’s a fun album to just headbang along to and is certainly a quality album that Darkthrone should be proud of. If you’re a fan of the band you should pick this up (if you haven’t already). If you’re a black metal elitist who slams Darkthrone for their expanding sound, stop complaining and just enjoy!

Rating: 3.0/5

Track listing:

1. The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker

2. Oath Minus

3. Hiking Metal Punks

4. Blacksmith of the North

5. Norway in September

6. Grizzly Trade

7. Hanging Out in Haiger

8. Dark Thrones and Black Flags

9. Launchpad to Nothingness

10. Witch Ghetto

Time keeps slipping away…

It’s already late October? Where have the last couple months gone? Anyway, I had a great band practice with Lifting Shadows today. We have a couple songs now that are ready to be performed (if only we had a singer). I’m starting to see some chemistry between us too, which is good. The first practice was a little awkward since we didn’t know each other well but this time it felt like the ice had broken a little and it was much easier to work together.

I also worked on some Static Light stuff this weekend. Specifically, I finished up the final mixes of the songs that have been recorded. After listening to the songs for a few times I was able to pinpoint some sections where one track was buried in the mix, or one was way too loud. So I corrected those issues today.

The tentative release date for the first Static Light LP, “Watching Leaves Fall”, is April 18th. The date has great personal significance to me, and it also falls in the span of time that I was planning to release the album. That gives me a little over five months. Obviously that’s a long time, but I’m being quite a perfectionist in making sure that every track is exactly how I want it to sound. Even the songs on the “October’s End” EP have been reworked quite a lot. Five months gives me a lot of time to write and record around 40 more minutes or so of material, giving me the chance to make sure every song is as good as it can be.

Watching Leaves Fall

Well, Fall isn’t off to a bad start. I’ve been much busier this year with school related activities than I’ve ever been by a significant amount, but so far I’ve dealt with the stress fairly well. Things in my personal life are also slowly working out. I’ve been very depressed for most of the last six months, and I think I’m slowly working out of that.

I’ve also been doing a lot of recording for the first Static Light album. Right now, it’s already at almost 25 minutes long (though I’m considering cutting one of the songs). I recently wrapped up a long seven minute song that shifts from ambient, to an almost black metal like section, to some soft jamming in the middle, and ending with some fast metal guitar solos. It’s pretty intense and it flows very well. The end result is great and I would probably consider it among the best songs I’ve recorded.

Right now I’m fairly confident the name of the album will be “Watching Leaves Fall”, and I have some ideas for the artwork. I can truly say I’m proud of how this album sounds so far, and I’m excited to work on it more!

Quick Update

It has been a pretty slow few days, so I thought I would just write a short update. First, I’ve been experimenting with some industrial-ish sounds for “Static Light”, as well as writing some solo piano material. For Lifting Shadows, I am still writing the song I posted about earlier named “October’s End”. 

Unfortunately, “Traced in Air” by Cynic has been pushed back to late November, a shame since I was very excited for it. The next few weeks sees the release of “Dark Thrones & Black Flags” by Darkthrone, “Happiness is the Road” by Marillion and “Timeline” by Ayreon (which I’m trying to get the money for). At least a couple of these will see full reviews.

On the same day “Colors_LIVE” came out, the reissue of Dillinger Escape Plan’s “Under the Running Board” was also released, which includes the original 3 song EP as well as 10 (!) bonus tracks. It’s a great purchase for fans of the band.

Review: Colors_LIVE (Between the Buried and Me)

It’s hard to be unbiased here. I mean just from looking at the source material, unless BTBAM had really screwed up somehow, there was no way this wasn’t going to be awesome. That being said, this DVD surpassed my already very high expectations to deliver a truly exciting two hour concert. But allow me to back up for a minute…

Between the Buried and Me’s 2007 album, “Colors” is one of my all time favorite albums. There is no experience quite like it. It’s one absolutely breathtaking 64 minute song that often transcends genres (though it would most easily be categorized as progressive metal). “Colors_LIVE”, as the title suggests, is a concert taped and recorded that included two sets, the first set being the whole “Colors” album/song, while the second set includes songs from their first three albums as voted on by the fans.

Any performing musician understands that, logically, the longer and more technical a song is the harder it will be to perform live. That makes a near flawless performance of an extremely technical hour long song incredibly impressive. There are literally two, ten second breaks throughout the song to catch a breath. Unbelievably, I can honestly say that I did not catch any mistakes throughout the entire performance. I’m sure some very observant and/or nitpicks will find some mistakes, but sounds practically as good as the studio. Even if the DVD just captured just this first set, it would still be more than worth picking up.

Luckily for us, however, “Colors” only makes up for half of the show. The second set is almost as exciting as the first (though, honestly, nothing could ever top Colors). The fans did a good job of choosing the songs, for the band plays through most of their classics. “Mordecai”, “Selkies: The Endless Obsession”, “Aspirations”, “Backwards Marathon” and more…you couldn’t ask for a much better setlist.

It’s not just the music itself that is impressive, I found that the DVD was very well shot, much better than I was expecting. There’s something about the way the concert was filmed that gives it a very intimate feeling. For almost the entire performance of the first set, the crowd is never shown. The filmmakers (wisely) decided to focus almost entirely on the band. The way the concert was shot is very effective and makes the viewing experience not quite like any other live DVD I’ve ever seen. The concert almost has a certain warmth to it, which is certainly an odd way to describe a progressive death metal concert but it’s honestly the only word that comes to mind.

If an amazing two hour DVD wasn’t enough, the package also includes a CD which contains the audio of the first set, and the DVD comes with a few features such as a short documentary. None of the extras are really essential, but they do add to the value of the package. I was also impressed with the packaging. The album art looked a little cheesy online but actually looked quite nice in my hands.

I can say with all honesty this is the best live DVD I own. There’s just some intangible feeling I had when watching it that I’ve never felt while watching a live concert before. As I said in the beginning, it would have been impossible for this to have been bad due to the the source material, but this DVD exceeded my already high expectations to deliver a truly powerful live experience. I’ve spent hours asking myself if this really deserves the rating I’m giving it, but I can’t think of a reason why it shouldn’t. Therefore, I give “Colors_LIVE” a perfect 5/5. I truly have never seen a DVD like this before.

Rating: 5/5

Setlist:

1. Foam Born (a): The Backtrack

2. Foam Born (b): The Decade of Statues

3. Informal Gluttony

4. Sun of Nothing

5. Ants of the Sky

6. Prequel to the Sequel

7. Viridian

8. White Walls

9. Mordecai

10. Shevanel Cut a Flip

11. Backwards Marathon

12. Ad a Dglgmut

13. Aspirations

14. Selkies: The Endless Obsession

:)

Well I must say I’m pretty busy right now. Static Light is doing better than I could have hoped. People are actually downloading the torrent and listening to the music on last.fm…which is good because the more feedback I get, the better! Work on the first LP is basically into full gear. You already know how 10 minutes of it will sound (look at the previous post), but there’s at least a half hour more to write and record. I honestly think the best is to come. Over the weekend I recorded a new piece that is very relaxing for the first couple minutes and then breaks out in an epic guitar solo near the end, I think it’s one of the better Static Light songs I’ve done.

I’m excited for winter break, because I’m planning to have what I’m calling a ‘music retreat’ for a few days, where I will invite some musicians I am also good friends with to spend a couple days at my home with the sole purpose of jamming, writing and recording music. I can’t wait to see what comes out of that!

I’m also doing a bit of Lifting Shadows stuff as well. Right now I’m mostly concentrated on getting the new drummer up to speed, but I am still working on the song I recently posted about and I think it’s turning out well. I’m also considering reworking a song we have done called “What You Leave Behind”. I’m hoping that we will be ready to start playing some shows early next spring, and possibly consider going to a real studio in late summer to start work on an album (assuming all goes well and we can find a singer).

Basically this is an exciting time for me, and hopefully this will all result in music that other people will enjoy!

RELEASE: “October’s End” EP – Static Light

Hey everyone, I’ve recently been posting about how much better the new material I’ve been working on for Static Light is than what I released on my demo. Now, you can decide for yourself! I’m releasing a ten minute, three song EP named “October’s End” of songs  that will be featured on the LP I am working on. You can listen and download the album in MP3 format at last.fm here. As always, I appreciate all comments, criticisms, and suggestions! It should be noted that Charlie Svitlik contributed a lot to this album.

Tracklisting:

1. Forgotten Pale Dreams

2. Flashy Colors

3. Falling Apart (I’m Okay)

Alternatively, I have released both the “Fading” demo and this EP in a lossless WAV format that can be downloaded as a torrent from Demonoid.com here. If you do not have a demonoid account and you wish to download the lossless files, please let me know and I will upload the torrent to a different website.

Forgotten Pale Dreams

I finished an instrumental piece on piano today called “Forgotten Pale Dreams”. It uses a weird scale called the E minor diminished whole tone scale. The recording went smoothly, and I think it’s the first time I’ve successfully recorded a whole song in one take. In fact, the first take sounded better than the last dozen times I had practiced it. 

The piece will find it’s home on the first Static Light LP I’m currently working on. No announcement yet on a release date, or even an estimate. I’m taking my time with this release, I want it to be something I’m proud of.

Review: The Dragons of Eden (Buckethead)

Buckethead is anything but a predictable artist. His work (solo and otherwise) varies greatly in style, from the reflective, almost ambient, guitar work on “Electric Tears” to the downright shred and metal on other releases. That being said, you never quite know what to expect from a new Buckethead album. The latest Buckethead album, “The Dragons of Eden”, is a collaboration between Buckethead, Travis Dickerson, Brain, and Cameron Stone. The end result is a very enjoyable instrumental effort. 

Noticeable right from the start is that Buckethead is not always the center of attention, in fact he is often content to riff away in the background. Dickerson has almost as many piano leads as Buckethead has solos, and the most surprising, as well as entertaining, parts of the record are the great cello leads by Stone. All of these elements are evident on the superb leadoff track “The Cosmic Calender”. The quality doesn’t stop there, however. The album is filled with memorable tracks, such as “The Abstractions of Beasts” and “Tales of Dim Eden” (which has great cello parts).

Buckethead has released a ton of well, unique, material over the years. The majority of what he releases is well worth the price, but he has his fare share of duds (such as the bland “Funnel Weaver”). Fortunately, “The Dragons of Eden” is a very melodic and accessible album. The album is filled with memorable solos and catchy instrumentation. The album is simply fun to listen to, which isn’t always certain with Buckethead’s material. Also, one of the coolest parts of the albums is the cello parts which I was not expecting from a Buckethead album at all. He definitely knows how to surprise the listener.

There isn’t much more to be said except that this is a very solid Buckethead release. I would love to see him do another collaboration with this group, and if this is any indication, hopefully the two other Buckethead releases coming out soon will be of this high quality. If you were tentative of purchasing the album due to Buckethead’s ever changing style, or were looking for a good place to start exploring his large catalogue, there isn’t a much better place to start than “The Dragons of Eden”.

Rating: 4/5

Track listing:

1. The Cosmic Calender

2. The Brain and the Chariot

3. The Abstractions of Beasts

4. Tales of Dim Eden

5. Lovers and Madmen

6. Future Evolution

7. Draco

8. Knowledge is Destiny

Note: This album is only available from the TRDS website at www.tdrsmusic.com or on tour.