01. Snakes for the Divine 08:23 02. Frost Hammer 06:07 03. Bastard Samurai 06:37 04. Ghost Neck 05:01 05. The Path 01:20 06. Fire, Flood and Plague 06:08 07. How Dark We Pray 08:06 08. Holy Flames of the Fire Spitter 04:13

It’s hard to believe that it’s coming up on three years since the last High on Fire album was released. That founder, guitarist and vocalist Matt Pike takes this long to produce an album is always going to instill a note of fear in his fans, most of whom are still traumatised by the saga of “Dopesmoker”. Pike’s old band, stoner metal legends Sleep, attempted to release “Dopesmoker” in 1995, but it didn’t see the light of day until eight years later, by which time the band had long since broken up. Pike has actually been busy with a Sleep reunion in the last year or so, but fear not, High on Fire devotees: “Snakes for the Divine” has actually been released, at long last!

Notably, “Snakes for the Divine” was produced by Greg Fidelman, famed for his peerless work on Slayer’s “World Painted Blood” and Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”, when he rescued both of those legendary bands from sounding like nu-metal ponces. He’s once again gone for the crisp, precise, dry kind of sound he brought to those albums, so it’s a slight departure from the explosive High on Fire sound we all know and love. However, if you take a moment to get used to it, this new style actually works really very well.
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01. Express Death 06:59 02. Pyramids 06:46 03. Paper Walls 05:48 04. He Dives Down 06:56 05. Terra Incognita 09:04 06. Lucky Me, Lucky You 04:14 07. Super Globe Of Pain 06:27 08. The Electric Hour 05:17

I’ll get it out of the way right from the start - Switch Opens are a Swedish metal band. Yeah, I know, you’re probably scuttling for cover toward the stereotype of all those identical ‘Gothenburg scene’ melodic death metal bands…but fear not. To start with, Switch Opens are from Stockholm, some 300 miles away from Gothenburg. And when it comes to metal, their sound too is a comparable distance away.

No, this isn’t another melodeath screamathon. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is. It’s really quite fascinating to dream up a list of Switch Opens’ probable influences while listening through this album - they create a haze of fuzz that screams Kyuss, but some of their riffs sound more rooted in Southern Metal, with the likes of Down or Corrosion of Conformity. Their down ’n’ dirty groove kind of puts you in mind of Motörhead, albeit a more doomy Motörhead, maybe on Valium…and on top of that, they appear to share a name with a Soundgarden song. Putting all of that together, I suppose, makes this seem like the work of hairy stoners.
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01. Set Guitars To Kill 05:29 02. A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way 03:25 03. Clench Fists, Grit Teeth…Go! 06:19 04. Capture Castles 07:17 05. Start A Band 04:53 06. Tip Of The Hat, Punch In The Face 04:21 07. If It Ain’t Broke…Break It 06:21 08. These Riots Are Just The Beginning 4:48 09. Don’t Waste Time Doing Things You Hate 07:31 10. The Voiceless 6:27 11. Eat The City, Eat It Whole 07:35

Hey, you. Ever heard of a band from Northern Ireland called ‘And So I Watch You From Afar’? I suppose it might be unlikely, but they’ve been making something of a name for themselves with their early releases and various bombastic live performances. Kerrang! actually claimed that “they can do nothing wrong”, and a host of other publications from NME to Metal Hammer have lined up to sing their praises. Not bad, really, for a progressive instrumental outfit from Belfast…and frankly, all of the praise they’ve been attracting is entirely merited.

After recording two EPs, ’This Is Our Machine And Nothing Can Stop It’ and ’Tonight The City Burns’, their self-titled debut was released in April 2009 by Smalltown America Records, the independent label run by fellow Brit post-rock proggers Jetplane Landing. And yet, I’ve only just noticed it. My bad.
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01. White Willow 06:28 02. Down Memory Lane 03:58 03. Lakeside Park 05:36 04. 3rd Type 07:23 05. Near Death Experience 01:46 06. Lost Ghost 06:16 07. Dragged 06:04 08. O.B.E 03:59 09. Tomorrow 08:07

I’m going to have to make clear that right from the start I have something of a bone to pick with Spheric Universe Experience; any astrophysicist worth his salt knows the universe is saddle-shaped. Not spherical. If Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein are down with that, sorry, I’m not letting a French prog band sway me.

Anyway, if we can somehow pretend that wound isn’t fatal, we could move on to the music…”Unreal” is the third album from the Nice-based five-piece, and is every bit as slick, assured and polished as you’d expect from a band who have been honing their craft for a decade. Despite recruiting a new drummer, Christope Briande, since the recording of 2007’s ‘Anima’, they appear as tight and confident as ever.
The band list their greatest influences and Dream Theater and Symphony X, and this is immediately apparent on opening track ‘White Willow’, as guitarist Vince Benaim doing his best to channel John Petrucci and a range of weird keyboard effects are the order of the day. That said, the giants of prog-metal are by no means bad role models, and subsequent tracks show the band breaking out and doing more of their own thing, and doing it well.
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01. Twisted Coil 11:43 02. Leland Street 08:03 03. Green and Cream 10:32 04. Season of Denial 10:22 05. Over 06:11 06. Perfection 10:46

“it won’t be Ayreon, that’s for sure.” - Arjen Lucassen

The above quote was given during our interview with Arjen Lucassen in April 2008 when work had just begun on Guilt Machine. Arjen has proven true to his word.

If you are expecting another Ayreon epic telling the sprawling tale of knights and wizards, space travel and aliens then this album is not for you. This album is a journey through sorrow, despair and guilt; a vast thematic and musical departure from the Ayreon project. This is not to say that if you enjoyed Arjen’s previous works you will not enjoy Guilt Machine, but there will no doubt be a few disappointed Ayreon fans out there.
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01. The Games We Play in Hell 06:24 02. So I Can Not Lose My Way 07:56 03. Nancy Thompson Gravewatch 04:40 04. Just a Ride 07:20 05. Tonight, Houston, Texas 10:59 06. Prayer for the Crippled Ballerina 08:48

I have been a fan of Dundee based Stewart Griffin’s music for quite some time and having worked with him in two bands I was excited to hear of the launch of his new project; Bergen St.

Bergen St are a hard band to categorise as there are many wide and varied influences at work in their debut EP including the likes of Sigur Ros, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen and even the now disbanded Dundee based act Eye. Despite all of these different influences the band has a unique style which can be clearly heard throughout each track. For the readers out there who require a label for the band I would recommend progressive, experimental, metal.

Although only featuring six tracks this EP is over 45 minutes, surpassing some albums in length (looks at Alestorm). Despite the long track lengths the songs never become tedious or repetitive and instead draw the listener into the sometimes ambient, sometimes heavy soundscape.
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01. Oblivion 5:46 02. Divinations 3:38 03. Quintessence 5:27 04. The Czar: Usurper/Escape/Martyr/Spiral 10:54 05. Ghost Of Karelia 5:24 06. Crack The Skye 5:54 07. The Last Baron 13:00

Mastodon have always been a band I’ve held in the very highest esteem; extremely technically proficient, an excellent live act, and above all the rare beast of a prog metal band who manage to avoid Lord of the Rings entirely in their subject material. So, great things were expected of their fourth full-length, Crack the Skye, when it was released earlier this year. And my god, did Mastodon deliver.

At first listen, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Georgia 4-piece have mellowed a bit over the years. The vocals are relatively clean throughout, and they’ve shed some of the wilder, more experimental musical content - there’s nothing quite as unhinged as Bladecatcher here. It’s still much more complex and intricate than your average metal album, still unmistakably Mastodon, but you get the feeling that while Leviathan and Blood Mountain foamed at the mouth, Crack the Skye merely looks at you a bit funny. That’s until you start to explore the story a little.
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01. Long Lost… (Single Mix)         03:29 02. The Esoteric Order of Dagon   03:48 03. Long Lost… (Optimistic Mix)    03:19

‘Long Lost…’ is the first single to be released by Sunderland based artist Synoiz. The single is a preview of the upcoming album ‘Ambients’ and if these songs are an example of what is to come then the album will certainly live up to its name as each song is rich with its own ambient feel.

The title track begins with low organs and synths, ethereal drums are added to complete the nostalgic, yet foreboding atmosphere. Also included on the single is an ‘Optimistic Mix’ of the track which uses the original as a base and builds a new, more ‘up-beat’ drum line to give a completely different feel to the track.

For me the highlight of the single was the second track; The Esoteric Order of Dagon. This dark, threatening track gives the feel of a twisted ritual, indeed the track even contains Lovecraftian chants that become more distorted as the track goes on. If the deep baritone vocals of the chants are Synoiz himself then I hope to hear them used more often in future works.

My advice for listening to this single would be to lay back, close your eyes, get some good headphones and let the ambient tracks wash over you.

‘Long Lost…’ by Synoiz can be found on both amazon and iTunes.

Genre : Experimental, ambient, progressive

Article by Ewan McNulty