FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
At its core, New Moon is about what Swallow The Sun have been doing at their best — infectious, melancholy, and swaying lead guitar melodies eventually overwhelmed by crushing fuzz surging against the backdrops of subtle keyboard ambiance. It’s quite possible that there will be time when Swallow The Sun’s sound is in need of a new direction, but New Moon ensures that for now it’s still well worth another trip down the beaten path.
That lighter spirit is what makes Skeletons In The Closet worth listening to because they make the spirit in the rest most obvious; it’s all for fun. These seventeen covers showcase every side of the band, but the most recurring of the lot is that the band is obviously having fun as they pay tribute to the bands they respect, but treat the outrageous steps out with equally good humour
If there’s one band that fully deserves a “victory lap” tour, it’s Children of Bodom, who after a good dozen years plying their distinct brand of melodic extreme metal, is finally experiencing some significant success in North America. For most fans who live in the smaller centres, they best they could manage before was to catch Alexi Laiho and his booze-fueled band of flashy Finns as part of a package tour, be it the Unholy Alliance or Gigantour, which usually meant a measly eight or nine songs, maximum, and when a band has six studio albums under their belts, it’s tough to get some variety. So the venue was packed with fans hoping to get a huge dose of the old stuff, and that’s exactly what Bodom gave them.
Adrien Begrand reviews the recent Saskatoon stop on the CoB/BDM/Skeletonwitch tour.
On their Myspace page, Finland’s April lists their influences with “All thoroughly emotional and sincere music inspires us!” In hindsight, I should have checked out their page before listening to Anthems of the Rejected (Spinefarm). Expecting a collection of black metal angst with angry, gritty lyrics, I was slightly disappointed to get a set of uber-contemporary, radio-friendly pop-metalcore.
The Plague of Butterflies EP, released by Finnish doom metal band Swallow The Sun, is a nice little package with potentially a lot of value for its price.