No aliens to the metal world, Florida's Cynic adopted a new perspective on progressive extreme metal and remain a fundamental part of technical metal history. The heart of the band is Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert who were part of Death for the seminal Human recording. Cynic released the universally-lauded Focus before disbanding in 1994. However, like many thrash acts from the eighties and early nineties, a reunion dawned in 2006. Traced in Air was the debut's successor, with material strong enough to be considered superior to Focus. Last year, the American due released Retraced, an EP containing alternative take on songs from Traced in Air, reformulated to embody a very modern and emotive rock shape, albeit with as much thoughtfulness as their original takes. The final track was new number 'Wheels Within Wheels', which shared the same musical DNA as the other tracks. This year, Cynic polarised opinion with Carbon-Based Anatomy, a EP bearing all new material very different to what adherents were expecting.
Carbon-Based Anatomy is essentially three full-length songs conjoined by three embellishing interludes. The most striking comparison to their older works is the complete erosion of any metal elements. Once bequeathed with death and thrash metal teeth, Cynic's music has embodied an idiosyncratic progressive rock form. Astral soundscapes and off beat drumming remain but the signature vocal decoder has been substituted for a clean Steven Wilson-esque vocal effort from Masvidal, as heard on Retraced. The solos are less unorthodox than the Focus days but the release comes across as a personal one, more interested in depicting emotive flares rather than metal complexity. The lyrics certainly feel more personal. From 'Box Up My Bones':
Haste to cure the old despair, No antidote, still I repair. Someone said that bird has no wings, But I've seen it fly, I've seen it fly in dreams.
On my way to love someone, On my way to love the one.
The level of atmosphere has been dramatically increased; Masvidal explains that this is due to an appreciation of the ambient works of Brian Eno and Eno's vast and lonesome atmospheres are evoked on this release. Additionally, in truly being progressive, the introductory 'Amidst the Coals' is from an Amazonian tribe's Icaro - a song said to have had healing properties.
This release is a sign of Cynic's maturity and a testament to their desire to do what they wish rather than be directed by trends or what the fans expect. Masvidal states that his music references his life and is naturally going to become "more interesting, expansive and colourful." [1]. Some detractors consider Carbon-Based Anatomyto be closer to an Aeon Spoke record than a Cynic one, but Aeon Spoke are more folk inclined and devoid of the celestial musings prominent in Cynic's music, including this EP. It is fair to conclude that the negative attention that plagues Carbon-Based Anatomy is predominantly from metalheads wishing for Death-hangover, interested in Cynic because of the shared members and are frustrated Cynic have no metal tendencies any more [2]. Masvidal stated that even in the early years, Cynic attracted may who listened to jazz and were completely ignorant to metal [1]. New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratcliff believes Cynic's music to be better understood outside of a metal vessel. Perhaps this is true.
The vigour of 'Veil of Maya' may be absent but the tenderness of 'Textures' remains. Either way, Masvidal does not intend for Cynic to be a nostalgia act so those desperate for the old Cynic should stick to Obscura. Or listen to Focus.
Texan classic thrash metallers Helstar
disbanded in the mid-nineties like countless other thrash acts but, like a
phoenix, rose again in 2007. The following year, the band released their
recorded comeback ‘King of Hell’, a surprisingly vicious update on the classic
Helstar sound. Two years later, the quintet struck back with ‘Glory of Chaos’.
Larry Barragan discusses the reactions Helstar have secured and what their
future plans are at their first UK show.
‘Glory of Chaos’ is a behemoth of a record,
with Halford-esque shrieks, thick modern metal riffage, and bloodthirsty
drumming, quite a far cry from Helstar’s classic ‘Remnants of War’ or
‘Nosferatu’ releases. Did this polarise the fanbase? “The first reaction was
like ‘Wow what the hell is that?’” Larry recalls animatedly. “And now everybody
just…they love it. They’re like “That’s the heaviest album you guys have made.”
It’s been pretty good. I haven’t had any real negative reactions from the fans.
We used a lot of James’ [Rivera, vocalist] voice on this one. A lot of people
didn’t realise he could do a lot of that stuff.”
The ultra-heavy sound the band has adopted works and is a feature
signature to metal that Helstar were known for before their reunion. “I always
wanted to make ‘Glory of Chaos’ since…forever. I’ve always wanted to be heavy.
Different members of the band pull us in all different directions. I’m not
saying that’s a bad thing. We’ve never had that album where you listen to it
and you felt like you’ve been punched in the face and that’s what I wanted for
this album.” Plenty of reactivated classic acts stick to what they mastered and
became best at, perhaps slightly modernising their sound but certainly not
directly drawing influences from newer bands. Larry takes pride in stating that
Helstar are the opposite. “We’re all metal heads and we’ve never stopped
listening to metal. There’s all these influences from newer bands like Lamb of
God and Sacrifice. What we wrote, that’s the way it came out. If you go back
and listen to all the albums, we’ve never done part two of anything. It’s hard
to do. It’s hard to not repeat yourself.”
The new sound is also a fantastic way to introduce the new
generation of metal fans to Helstar, with a fresh sound as opposed to an
outdated, nostalgic one. “The fanbase has actually grown since we’ve reunited.
Last night, we played old songs and everyone was absolutely cool with it and
then we played ‘Alma Negra’ and the place went nuts. Every time we played one
of the new songs, I could tell there was different energy all of a sudden.” In
a world where bands are struggling to remain relevant or stand out in some
manner, Helstar have accomplished what they need to do with new music.
With the surge in popularity with retro thrash and heavy metal bands
emulating a sound that was commonplace in the eighties, it seems like Helstar
are taking the intrepid route by introducing new sounds, rather than
capitalising on their classic metal status and potentially catapulting
themselves into the same sphere of attention as these newer acts. Larry
believes there is a strong difference between retro acts and those who were
actually there at the time. “I think they have the knowledge of it, I don’t
know if they have the feel that these bands like Helstar and some of the other
bands that have been around. Those guys – when they write an album, it has a
certain vibe and feel and you can tell these guys are gonna be around for a
while. When you listen to those [retro metal bands], it sounds polished and
everything but maybe they don’t quite get it. You gotta have your own identity.
That’s just my biased opinion I guess.”
One of the prominent attributes as to why Helstar’s new found
heaviness is around can be attributed to new drummer Mikey Lewis. “On ‘Glory of
Chaos’, we’ve got Mikey in the band as our drummer and he understood us more
from a drum perspective than any one. I think the album sounds as heavy as it
does because of him. He made a huge change in us. It’s subtle, I don’t think
people realise when they listen to it – the drums are fucking heavy – they just
think ‘Wow, it sounds so heavy, it’s so fast.’ Actually he plays guitar too. He
wasn’t in the writing process but for the next one, for sure. He’s already said
‘I’ve got some parts. Let’s get together.’ Yeah, anything to make my job
easier.”
After this tour, Helstar plan on heading home to work on a new
release. “I’ve got parts here and there that I have on my laptop already but
not anything concrete. I’m sure Rob has a bunch of parts as well. Like I said,
Mikey has some guitar parts too so we’ll get together and start piecing
everything together.” As ‘Glory of Chaos’ was composed through emails and
recorded without the band rehearsing together, it could be that the follow up
album will be more thought out with more intricacies as Larry believes it could
be beneficial to write the album together. “I think everybody wants to get
together a little bit more and take some more time over the stuff. I like the
solos but I think if I had a little more time, I could have made the solos more
elaborate. But overall, I’m happy.”
Testament looking anything from apprehensive to mournful.
Last year, Testament released their highly-anticipated full-length album The Formation of Damnation, their first studio release in almost a decade. The album received strong praise from the critics and over all, the album is strong (except the title track which has poor metalcore written all over it). Seeing as Testament's last album The Gathering was released in 1999, they never got the opportunity to commit to record their thoughts on the 9/11 terrorist attack. 'The Evil Has Landed' was to be their articulation space for this. The music is good; the lyrics are sub-par for an American band.
Songs about atrocities like 9/11 are best avoided (see Iced Earth's 'When The Eagle Cries') but if a band's desire is to show their support for the victims, who can stop them? Besides, Dream Theater's 'Sacrificed Sons' was not considered a joke and was a mature approach to the topic. Despite the music being high grade modern thrash metal, the lyrics Testament have produced truly lay waste to the pun-enclosed title and it is questionable as to whether they were written by Joakim Broden of the Swedish band Sabaton. The title is an excellent pun but all it truly does is underline the camp nature of the lyrics.
Here are the lyrics presented in their entirety:
"The sky began to fall, ripping open a path up to Heaven Time slowed to a crawl - early morning September eleventh Steel crumbling frames, the scales of justice are decimated Hate ignites the flames, New York city incinerated See the flames on the river, is this our judgement day? Praying hands of a killer when evil flies our way Our way
The towers got hit, a steel bird with wings of destruction As the building split, the skyline has been deconstructed So many people killed, two thousand nine hundred and seventy four Innocent blood spilled, extremist plotting a holy war See the flames on the river, terrorism sealed our fate Praying hands of a killer reciting a sermon of hate Will you please reconsider, is this our judgement day? Time to stand and deliver when evil flies our way Flies our way
We will pick up the pieces We never cast the first stone Through all the bereavement We will rebuild our home
The sky began to fall, ripping opening a path up to Heaven Time slowed to a crawl - early morning September eleventh See the flames on the river, terrorism sealed our fate Praying hands of a killer reciting a sermon of hate Will you please reconsider, is this our judgement day? Time to stand and deliver when evil flies our way Flies our way"
The analysis is as follows:
"The sky began to fall, ripping open a path up to HeavenTime slowed to a crawl - early morning, September eleventh"
The attention to detail is precise without being pedantic (giving the actual time of impact, for example). Time slowing to a crawl gives the sense that the entire world was upset by America's injury and using it as a pre-modifier for "early morning, September eleventh" only adds more emphasis. The separation of "early morning, September eleventh" highlights the importance of the date/event for the listeners unaware about what the song is dealing with.
"Steel crumbling frames, the scales of justice are decimatedHate ignites the flames, New York City incinerated"
The justice metaphor is awkward, at best. It sounds like a foreigner wrote it, using a complex word where it is just not necessary. 'Decimated' is such an overwhelming verb that it makes the line further more ridiculous. The lack of the word 'is' in the phrase "New York City incinerated" makes the incineration more immediate but New York City was not incinerated. It just lost two features of its skyline. That hardly insinuates the destruction of the entire city. The chorus continues:
"See the flames on the river, is this our judgement day? Praying hands of a killer when evil flies our way Our way"
Judgement Day is supposedly at the close of the world. Again, the city just lost two buildings, not the whole country. The contradictory nature of 'Praying' and 'killer' is a nice balance (perhaps an ironic reference to the scales of justice mentioned earlier being disturbed?) although one must wonder how much thought Testament actually put into writing these lyrics. Additionally, the 'our way' makes it sound as if America is the only country that has had violent, foreign interference. It also makes the States sound innocent of committing any atrocity.
"The towers got hit, a steel bird with wings of destruction As the building split, the skyline has been deconstructed"
The fact that the towers that were hit are not specified assumes the listener knows exactly which towers the band are talking about and they do not want to be less economic with their words in explaining. Or, the lack of specification could be because the band were so close to the Twin Towers that they always called them 'The towers'. Technically, the word 'got' should be substituted with 'were' to modify the flow better: "The towers were hit". The 'steel bird' metaphor is very visual in representing a plane but there were two planes; surely it should read 'birds'. Nonetheless, this is a trivial issue but manifests itself in the following line by mentioning 'building' as opposed to 'buildings'. Dictionary.com's definition of the word 'deconstructed' is [1]:
To write about or analyze [sic] (a literary text, for example), following the tenets of deconstruction.
Obviously Testament are referring to the first definition. As stated earlier, New York's skyline was not completely destroyed - only two buildings were removed. Neither was the skyline broken into smaller components. Removal does not equate to dismantling. 'Deconstructed' is employed in a haphazard manner here too (the foreigner's unnecessary super vocabulary usage comes to mind again). Further confusion of the English language is present in the sudden change of tense. 'Split' is simple perfect tense but the same line has the verb phrase 'has been' which, although perfect, is actually the present perfect tense. The lyric should read either: "As the building split, the skyline was deconstructed" or "As the building has split, the skyline has been deconstructed," and that is without reformatting the vocabulary, still rendering it clumsy. It has to be stated though, the way Testament include the deconstructed skyline at the bottom of their album cover is truly admirable.
The skyline at the bottom, which features what looks like an Ancient Greek temple, is a clear example of deconstruction.
"So many people killed, two thousand nine hundred and seventy four Innocent blood spilled, extremist plotting a holy war"
Precision is employed further by the thrash icons who give the exact number of casualties from the 9/11 attack, justifying the independent clause that precedes it. It is fortunate for Testament that four is the only digit that rhymes with 'war'. Had 2975 or 2973 people died, this line could be something else. The possibilities are phenomenally endless. Apparently only one extremist was behind this. The magnitude of hijacking and crashing two planes into two of New York's trademark skyscrapers was apparently all orchestrated and committed by a single character. It appears Testament have difficulties in distinguishing between the singular and the plural.
"See the flames on the river, terrorism sealed our fate Praying hands of a killer reciting a sermon of hate"
'Fate' suggests finality but as far as the world is aware, America is still alive and running. The following line is acceptable but far from compelling.
"Will you please reconsider, is this our judgement day? Time to stand and deliver when evil flies our way Flies our way"
"Will you please reconsider" - apparently Testament are willing to negotiate with terrorists. Perhaps they should become ambassadors to America [2] or join the UN if they enjoy negotiation so much. Does this thrash metal band really think terrorists will quit their objectives that they spent years forging because they requested it in a song? What exactly do they want the terrorists to reconsider anyway? The listener will never know (and neither will Testament probably). With another 'judgement day' reference, it is clear that finality is a semantic field of this song. What the band plan on delivering is completely vague and if the "time to stand" has only come now, what were they doing before: sitting or lying? Something entirely different? It seems surprising to learn that for these choruses instead of not including the awesome pun-laden title of the song, they contradict it by saying evil is flying as opposed to landing (and this all contradicts the reality that evil crashed, not landed.)
"We will pick up the pieces We never cast the first stone Through all the bereavement We will rebuild our home"
The second line of this passages marks America completely innocent. The final line suggests that the band's homeland of Oakland, CA was attacked when that is actually on the other side of America. If they are actually referring to the States in its entirety when they say 'home' here then again they are exaggerating as only two buildings in New York were struck and if the whole of America needed to be rebuilt because of two buildings in a single city then it is no wonder their economy is failing hard. It would be a criminal waste of money. Testament really need to clarify this.
"The sky began to fall, ripping opening a path up to Heaven Time slowed to a crawl - early morning September eleventh See the flames on the river, terrorism sealed our fate Praying hands of a killer reciting a sermon of hate Will you please reconsider, is this our judgement day? Time to stand and deliver when evil flies our way Flies our way"
The repetition of this section can only be to entertain the listener, emphasise terrorism further (as if the song had not been doing such a thing at all) or because the band [3] did not want to write more lyrics.
It is sincerely hoped that Testament rectify their poor lyrics on their next release. A few US thrash metal bands have laughable lyrics (Exodus, Overkill, Slayer etc.) but Testament take the cake and the rest of the bakery with 'The Evil Has Landed'. It truly is hard to believe they are an American band. However, if Broden penned these lyrics as widely speculated, he can be forgiven.
You are already forgiven, Joakim.
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[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deconstructed (in regards to online matters and discussion, dictionary.com outweights the Oxford English dictionary).
[2] With Kataklysm being 'The Ambassador of Pain' this seems an achievable goal for an American metal band.
I started seriously listening to metal in 2004, when I was 15. I started out with heavy metal then all the other melodic metal subgenres, followed by thrash and then the other extreme ones.
My favourite subgenre is prog metal.
I started this blog because I am interested in semi-academic writing/essays on metal and there aren't enough sites consistently doing it. I want real heavy weight, well-researched articles on here, brimming with a passion for metal.
Carbon-Based Anatomy is essentially three full-length songs conjoined by three embellishing interludes. The most striking comparison to their older works is the complete erosion of any metal elements. Once bequeathed with death and thrash metal teeth, Cynic's music has embodied an idiosyncratic progressive rock form. Astral soundscapes and off beat drumming remain but the signature vocal decoder has been substituted for a clean Steven Wilson-esque vocal effort from Masvidal, as heard on Retraced. The solos are less unorthodox than the Focus days but the release comes across as a personal one, more interested in depicting emotive flares rather than metal complexity. The lyrics certainly feel more personal. From 'Box Up My Bones':
