Devin Townsend - Ghost

There are musicians and there are truckloads of them. They create music, acquire a fan base(small or large), and create more music to divide the fan base into the "old school" and the "open minded".

And every once in a while, a musician walks on the planet who is extra ordinary and sets the bar so high for his/her peers which is difficult to scale.

Devin Townsend is one such musician and Ghost is the flag that he has put on top of the mountain he has created and scaled with his career prior to before.

Ghost is not heavy. Ghost is not about the riffs. Ghost is not about the bass lines. Ghost isn't about the humour that Devin so delicately blends with metal.

What Ghost does is take to you to another world and keeps you there throughout the 70 odd minutes. And if that world had anything to do with Ghosts, they are friendly and sing soothing numbers to you. The different layers on the tracks blend really well and create the atmosphere which can soothe a disturbed soul in minutes and make it stay in that state for a long while.

There are flavours of folk and country music(I felt so) which gives the album an entirely different feel from the rest of the albums from Townsend's catalogue. This is definitely one of the better albums that anyone will come across. Ghost is a pinnacle in musicianship that will require a great amount of effort to better.

Amplifier - The Octopus - Review Part II

Disc II continues from where Disc I left off. Especially in terms of the awesomeness. There are plenty of brilliant moments. The Sick Rose reminded me of Porcupine Tree, especially the opening section. The drumming could have had a bit more texture to it, but that doesn't mean it was sloppy.

Interstellar starts with an 8-bit video game like intro which moves into something really heavy and settles into a catchy pattern reminding us that they are a 3-piece band at work, with occasional multi layer chunks thrown in. The 10 minute track has the pattern going on for a while before a superb transition takes the song in a different direction. Once again, the vocals shine through. The way the song ends with a once again smooth transition to a slow outro is simply brilliant.

Emperor again had elements of Tool during the intro. However, the band members get into their elements and render a silky pop rock track. The album achieves its Golden Ratio with some sweet guitars and and a perfect mix of instruments, length and music. This is certainly the high point of the album for me.

The start-stop nature of Fall of the Empire brings out the groovy side of the guys while Bloodtest builds an old world ambience. I was able to relate to Oscar Night/Embryo, being an individual who isn't much into movies. The strange part was the cinematic style outro, which I found a bit ironic.

The album ends with Forever and More, which begins in a frenzy and builds an atmosphere from which you don't want to leave. All the band members shine on this one, just the way most bands end a gig. It also leaves you wanting more, even though you have crossed two discs to get to this point, which I think makes this work, a master piece.

Amplifier - The Octopus - Review Part I

I don't know where I heard about Amplifier and the album The Octopus, but I decided to check it out once I heard some rave reviews about it. It is supposedly by a 3 member act, but The Octopus sounds like it was created with help from a million musicians. The amount of detail present in the album is similar to that present in some of the master piece works of our times, which have come out after years of writing, recording, sampling and editing. The Octopus is an epic in the truest sense, being a two-disc album, along the lines of Floyd's The Wall. 


Since I haven't had the time to have a go at both the discs together, I'll do a two part review of the album, this being part-I (obviously, duh!).


The disc has full of fantastic moments. The Runner is a cinematic track which provides a brilliant opening for the album. Personally, I felt that the track could have been shorter, but it serves its purpose very well and leaves us waiting to find out what the album has in store for us. Amplifier, the band, as story tellers is what Minion is all about. The punk sounds towards the 3 minute mark, the operatic chorus and the way a frenzy is built towards the end is testimony of their wonderful song writing capabilities.


Heavy metal lovers would love Interglacial Spell. It has elements of heavy metal with heaviness in vocals and a galloping riff. The solo blends perfectly with the mood and the wailing guitars add a beauty, which I'm struggling to put into words. I found resemblances to Tool with The Wave. It's a mix of doom and punk rock and if you thought that would be like oil and water, you are shown that it's something like rum and coke.

The title track is a thing of beauty. That something of this sort could be created step by step has been proved time and again by musicians and Amplifier just show us that they are right there at the top when it comes to such creations. I liked the song a lot more because I found an Opethian influence in the track. Planet of the Insects has a catchy riff. It is not the best song on this album IMHO. White Horses At Sea/Utopian Daydream creates an ideal world with some delicious music, however, they also tell us how painful Utopia is, if you go by the tone of the track.


The album ends with Trading Dark Matter on the Stock Exchange. The lovely mid section and a doom like atmosphere gives an end to a wonderful disc, making you want more in the second disc.


It's one thing to make music. It's another thing to make beautiful music. I think Amplifier have put out a brilliant record, which I'm sure am going to love more with subsequent listens.

Sarvanasini

It is not too often that a word gives you just two results when you look it up on google. And it is much rarer that it is the name of a project. Sarvanasini is one such word and we would like to contribute our bit towards making that project better known to the rest of the world, which is unaware of its existence.

Most times, the underground is full of precious little gems which lie hidden amidst a mud and dirt. Sarvanasini is one such gem. A one man electronic metal band formed by Shyam Gopakumar, it is a breath of fresh air in a scene, which mostly thrives on non-innovation and sticking to tried and tested methods of music production.

A metal EP made only with the help of a computer/computers, the self titled effort sets the stage for better things to come from the band. The whereabouts of the artist is evident in the work. The EP has a malayalam feel to it, not only in the track titles, but also in the music.

Starting with Mounam, a track which transports the listener to the depths of a jungle is an ideal intro track. The atmosphere it brings is stunning. About three minutes into the track, it slips into the realms of black metal from doom and slips back, with the same flawlessness, to doom.

The self-titled track in the self titled EP, Sarvanasini deserves a post in itself. The drumming is very black metal based, but the guitars blast away in some melodies, which have a very classical touch to them. The head banger in you is invoked and it continues to behold you in that trance for the rest of the work. The chenda based beats at 4 minutes and the screams are just out of the world.

Kaalam continues in the same vein as Sarvanasini, maintaining the tempo, but with some experiments with the drumming patterns and it impresses.

The crescendo for the finale begins with the penultimate track on the album, Avasanam. It maintains the high pitched guitar melodies, which is a trademark of the album, but also something, I feel can be worked upon. Though the tunes are differecnt, they do tend to get a bit monotonous on subsequent listens to the entire album because of the range that it operates in.

The final track of the EP, Maranam Sampoornam signs it off in perfect style. It contains all the elements that makes this effort unique in first place. The transitions from the heavy riff based arrangements to the acoustic melodies is breath taking and the evil laughter at the end reminds one of the stories of Yakshis, that live on the palm trees, stalking innocent men to take them to their doom.

I would personally love to hear more works from the band. A full length album would be eagerly awaited, I am sure, by quite a lot of metal heads in the country as well.

You can download the EP here.

PS : Thanks to my friend Crucifire for linking me up to their page.

Summoning - Oathbound

When you hear the term Black Metal, your mind visualizes a few folks jamming in a dungeon and recording it in a very shitty quality and releasing it. The material, however awesome it is, sounds very poor and we wonder how brilliant it would've sounded if it the recording was good.

Summoning is one black metal project who give a lot of importance to the recording quality. The two guys Silenius and Protector, know their art well and put it out in the best possible manner. Oathbound is epic, both in terms of the lengths of the tracks, their quality and of course, due to the theme they depict in their albums, The Lord of the Rings.

I was wondering out loud one day on Twitter whether there are any atmospheric bands which are great to listen to while reading LoTR and Summoning was the response from one of my friends out there. And the track he directed me to was Mirdautas Vras, a track with lyrics in the dark language of Mordor. Now how cool is that?!

The standout track from the album is the 10 minute epic that is Land of the Dead. It teleports you to the Path of the Dead and back.

The atmosphere has already been talked about, but requires mention. While listening to the album, you'll feel like you are in the middle of middle-earth with tales and lores of the great deeds of the Men being sung to you.

The intro track Bauglir sounds more of a Celtic folks tune, but sets up the album nicely. From there on, the journey through Middle Earth goes on, all the way to Mordor.

Must listen for LoTR fans. Must listen for the rest of you too!

No flaws could be identified, if at all there are any.

I'll give it 10/10