Giant of the Mountain are a progressive death metal outfit hailing from Plano, Texas. Metal Archives calls them "technical death metal", but I'm going to go ahead and disagree with that label. They are currently a trio, but the bassist is a brand new addition. At the time of recording this, their newest full-length which came out just last month, they were a husband and wife duo with no additional members. This is their third album, but it was the first I'd heard of them.
I should begin by pointing out that the "full-length" label is pretty generous, given that this record consists entirely of a single 19-minute track. From what I can see, their previous full-length albums have been more conventionally structured, and only their 2010 EP is this short.
With that covered, on to the music itself. As you would expect, the flow that comes with a solid track throughout the album makes this a very cohesive work. It's also very interestingly composed, with the clearly audible and surprisingly active bass standing out as the real highlight of the record. The bass ranges from jazzy noodling to odd progressive riffs, providing a truly unique footing for this album among death metal releases. The other instruments, however, are not quite as interesting. The guitar riffs change up and they often seek new directions, but in an effort to be dynamic and creative they sometimes just come across as a bit aimless. There are moments where they really click, but unfortunately those tend to be somewhat fleeting. The drum work is fast in all the right places and seems to be generally pretty solid, but it's a little too low in the mix, which makes it difficult to follow in some places. Nonetheless the drumming provides a solid backbone, and aside from that slight balance issue the production on the album is fine, though not especially noteworthy.
The vocals are somewhat higher and thinner in tone than most death growls, and occasionally they even work their way up to borderline shrieking. There is a little touch of clean vocal work too, but not enough to feel intrusive. Personally I am a little conflicted about the vocals. On the one hand they are less dense than a more conventional growl, which is good because this band's style requires more room for the instrumentation to breathe. On the other hand, the tone of his voice honestly kind of grates on my nerves. This makes the vocals well-attuned to the needs of the music, but it also makes it hard for me to like them.
What I will say is that the uniqueness of this record has piqued my curiosity, and I may well find myself exploring their other material in the near future. However, the brevity of the album. combined with my distaste for the vocals and the hit-and-miss nature of the guitar work. prevents me from regarding this as highly as I would otherwise.
Grade: B-
Definitely interesting and worth checking out, but also notably flawed in some respects.
I know we all have those songs which always put us in a certain time and place when we hear them. Other songs always make us think of certain things like people or foods. Well because I just listened to one such song which I hadn't heard in a while, I have this phenomenon on my mind at the moment. Therefore, I have concluded that I should write a post about some of those songs and what they make me think about when I hear them.
This one is easy to place why I think of it. Back when MySpace was a thing that human beings used to communicate, I made a profile on that site. Like most people, I decided it was important for anybody looking at my page to be forced to listen to music of my choice. This music video was the first such item I put on my page, so now every time I hear the song I picture the video and remember sitting at a friend's house creating my MySpace page.
One of my all-time favorite songs. For the past few years I've found that every time I hear this I remember riding along in the back-left seat of my mom's Explorer with my head against the window. Rain was coming down in torrents outside, and I was listening to this song.
Here is the song that is responsible for me writing this post. Every single time I hear this song, I spend the entire time thinking of The Brave Little Toaster. I never heard this song while watching the movie, or near the same time as far as I can recall. I think it's that the vocals in the chorus make me think of the weird song in the back room of the junk store from the movie, but I'm not really sure.
When I was first starting to find my way into newer music, Breaking Benjamin were a huge part of the process. I had never really listened to anything with even remotely explicit lyrics, though, so the chorus of this song was something I didn't feel comfortable playing around my parents or younger siblings. As such, it was a go-to song on my headphones or when out with friends, and now when I hear it I always remember a specific time riding around in Las Vegas with my best friends, looking for Chinese food and playing this song on the stereo.
Another one of my all-time favorite songs, this track is remarkable for two reasons. One is that I can remember with absolute clarity the first time I heard it, and the other is that unlike most songs which have to work their way into my favorites over time, I fell in love with this song immediately. Consequently, every time I hear it now I remember the first time my dad played it for me, and I remember thinking as I heard it "this is now one of my favorite songs" which is something I have never done so abruptly at any point before or since.
This is a song that always makes me think of a particular person. I think we all know one of those older men who likes to tell stories about how ridiculously hard their life was back when they were young. In my case the individual in question (a family friend) was also the type who would go on about his various exploits at great length, crafting a life which Gulliver, Forrest Gump, and John Rambo all rolled into one would still fall short of even if they each lived to be 200 years old. Obviously, that person is who this song reminds me of.
There was a period of time about 7-8 years ago when I listened to Bob Marley's compilation Legend pretty much non-stop. I still love that record, I still love this song, and I still play it periodically. It's tied strongly enough to that place in time, though, that I always think of our old back yard, pulling weeds while playing this on my Walkman. Later, my dad told me this song always reminds him of me, and now I also remember him saying that whenever I play this song.
This one, which I may have mentioned before, always brings me back to the first time I moved out "on my own". I was living in an apartment in Las Vegas with my best friend, his older sister, and her two daughters. When I bought this record I began playing it a ton, and I'd even put it on to fall asleep to pretty regularly. As such, it always makes me remember laying in bed at night in that apartment. The same basic statement could actually be made about the entire album, but this song is one of the strongest in its association for some reason.
Several years ago, I rolled my car over with all three of my siblings inside with me. This was on the stereo at the time, and the last thing I can remember hearing was the chorus for this song before the thought "did I just kill us all?" started running through my head while I watched the ground coming toward the windshield in slow motion. It is not a pleasant memory, and since hearing anything by them always calls it back to my mind, I almost never listen to Rage Against the Machine any more.
There are plenty of other songs that bring me back to certain places or that remind me of certain things, but this collection features most of the prominent examples that have really specific associations for me. You'll probably notice the lack of metal songs, but that is mostly because the metal songs I've liked for long enough to bring me to a certain time or place all tend toward the same general time and the same basic places, so repeating dozens of trivial variations on that theme would be almost as boring for me as it would be for you.
I will say, though, that several songs always bring back strong specific memories of hearing them live in concert. For one reason or another, these songs really made a memorably good or bad impression live. Some of the most notable songs of this variety are: Simple Man by Shinedown, Take This Life by In Flames, The Jester Race by In Flames, The Pursuit of Vikings by Amon Amarth, Cry of the Black Birds by Amon Amarth, Blind by Korn, When Darkness Falls by Killswitch Engage, Pellonpekko by Korpiklaani, Hail to the Hammer by Týr, Pour que tu m'aimes encore by Celine Dion,and Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce.
See what I mean about how boring it would get? I'll stop now.
Azarok is the one-man black/folk metal project of E. Hereticius. Some listeners may also be acquainted with his work as the sole member of the newer funeral doom band Funerius. This, Azarok's second full-length after a long series of demos, was released about a month ago.
I mentioned the artist's work in funeral doom, because I think it's relevant to the nature of this record. The entire album consists of a single, 41 minute title track (their full-length debut last year took the same approach). As one might expect, this song is very unhurried in its nature and composition. There are long slow passages with background forest sounds, flutes, chants, acoustic guitar, hand percussion, assorted other instrumentation, and generally a good deal of folk-based flavor. The record starts and finishes with that type of material, and it is interspersed throughout the remainder of the album at varied intervals.
Within the heart of the record, moderately paced black metal takes control, though as I said it is periodically broken up by softer passages. During these heavier stretches, some keyboards crop up behind the guitar riffs and the folk elements are still occasionally sprinkled in, but the primary emphasis is placed firmly on the guitar work. Rather than walls of thin, blistering tremolo riffs, the guitar is surprisingly groove-oriented. A black metal tone is still clearly present, but a slower, slightly more bass-heavy sound pervades. In some places this means a galloping Viking charge sound, while in other places the riffs are just solid mid-paced grooves. Some soaring, almost prog-metal work even crops up here and there, with an unexpected but quite welcome solo making an appearance around the 26-minute mark. Throughout all these different phases, the sound is stunningly catchy and really draws the listener in as the music feels actively propelled forward. The drums aid enormously in this process, as they conform very tightly to the direction of the guitar, changing pace and approach as needed. They serve to drive the music forward in some passages, while in others they take a back seat and give the other instruments space. The overall approach is very dynamic, and given that the same man put them down it really isn't surprising how well they mesh with the rest of the instrumentation.
Probably the least remarkable aspect of this record is the vocal work, and even that is really quite good. E.Hereticius displays a wide selection of vocal techniques, ranging from soft clean chants to raspy shrieks to distorted roars, always adapting to the music. The sole reason why I would put the vocals on the lowest rung is that they are not especially prominent within the composition, and because the rest of the music is so engaging that the vocals are simply eclipsed. On a final note, the production falls into a very nice range. It's fuzzy and gritty without deteriorating into a hazy wall of static. This, naturally, has a very positive effect on the overall character of the record.
Grade: A
I didn't go into this record with any particular expectations, but as of right now I'd put it solidly in contention for my favorite metal album of 2012.
[10/3/2012 Note: While I still regard this as a surprisingly good release, I should note that after giving it more time to sink in, I would give it a slightly lower grade were I to rewrite this review today.]
I have been less active than I'd like (read: totally inactive) for the past couple weeks. I had to make the move back down to my apartment in Athens (Ohio, not Greece), I had my first week of classes, and I've had a string of problems to deal with since getting back here. Many, though not all, of those problems have been computer related. As such, I've just been too busy to really post anything of much value. I did finish another FMA guest review yesterday, which I'll link whenever it gets posted. Otherwise, though, I've got nothing music-wise to offer at the moment. Hopefully things will settle in a bit and I'll be able to get back to putting up some new reviews within the next week or so, as my list of albums to write about has begun piling up for a while.
