The Music of 2007

All right, onto the good stuff first, shall we?

Album of the Year (Metal):

1. Chimaira – Resurrection
2. Sigh – Hangman’s Hymn
3. Odious Mortem – Cryptic Implosion
4. Dark Tranquillity – Fiction
5. Dying Fetus – War of Attrition
6. Aborted – A Methodical Overture

Album Disappointments (some of these are utter bummers):

1. Machine Head – The Blackening
• This is by far the most disappointing album I’ve heard. Ever. This is a stinker of the highest order. I can’t believe how Robb Flynn and co managed to come up with such trite and hopeless songs.
2. Nile – Ithyphallic
• What do you get when you have 4 white guys playing Egyptian-themed brutal death metal? You get Nile. What happens when you put 4 white guys and have them come up with an incredibly feeble and pedestrian follow-up to a rather good album? You get this album.
3. Dream Theater – Systematic Chaos
• Oh, my lordy. This is by no means a bad album, but rather, it’s a terribly disappointing one. It has the makings of a truly special album but Mike Portnoy (I name him the main culprit simply because his influence on the band’s sound and direction is growing tremendously) contrives to come up with some pretty banal stuff.
4. Naglfar – Harvest
• The songs are insipid and lack a certain sense of evil unlike their previous album, Pariah, which had it in abundance. And the horrible production mars this further by making everything sound like the haze in Malaysia.
5. Susperia – Cut From Stone
• My fiends, this is how to not make a follow-up to an incredible album. This album has everything stamped with mediocrity and sterility.
6. Behemoth – The Apostasy
• Nergal once again tries to be more brutal than a pack of chickens running wild in a corn field. This is where brutality for the sake of brutality backfires.

Song of the Year (Metal):

1. Iced Earth – Framing Armageddon
• It’s fast. It’s heavy. It’s catchier than getting a cold in Alaska. This is THE song of 2007.
2. Chimaira – Resurrection
• Coming in a close second, Chimaira at long last unleash a song that shows what they’re truly capable of.
3. Black Sabbath – The Devil Cried
• Four words: Dio, Iommi, Butler, Appice. ‘Nuff said.
4. Helloween – Kill It
• These crazy Germans have done it again. Actually, I don’t know what they did but it seems to be working. Especially on this. Horrendous lyrics, though.
5. Odious Mortem – The Endless Regression of Mind
• Hands down, this has got one of the best death metal solos I’ve heard in a long time.
6. Dark Tranquillity – Focus Shift
• An atypical song from the lads from IKEA land. But it sure as heck rocks!
7. Sigh – Introitus/Kyrie
• Probably the most maniacal-sounding black metal vocals I’ve heard. And to think the dude eats sushi and then sings and…nevermind…
8. Apocalyptica – I’m Not Jesus
• It’s not what you think. Heck, it’s not what you think it isn’t either.
9. The Arcane Order – Infinite Ghost Anathema
• On first listen, you’ll think, hmm, where have I heard this before? The genre has been done to death but these lads have pulled together a top notch death/thrash song with enough élan to wipe a baby’s bottom.
10. Dominici – A New Hope
• The solo at the end is simply magnificent. Highly and criminally underrated.

Other Albums That Really Impressed Me (And I’m the kind of person that doesn’t get impressed easily):

1. Alter Bridge – Blackbird

o Seriously, this is the best rock album I’ve heard in a long, long time. It has everything; great vocals, great drumming, great riffs, and most importantly: great songs.

2. Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet

o The band with one of the funniest-sounding band names, led by the ingenious Steven Wilson, once again proves they are the best progrock band currently.

3. Norah Jones – Not Too Late

o Like fine wine, Ms. Jones gets better. But only a little. She still sings way too breathy at times and her country-tinged ditties make me want to break out in line dance.

4. Michael Bublé – Call Me Irresponsible

Honourable Mentions (Basically these are songs that really impressed me but came out in different years):

1. Gorgoroth – Wound Upon Wound (2006)

o I used to think that black metal sucks. I still do. But not this band. It’s fast, full of hate and is downright fun! Last count in my iPod was 26 times it played. It took only 3 months. It’s that bloody good.

2. Estradasphere – Smuggled Mutation (2006)

o A beautifully savage beast of a ditty. It’ll make you smile benignly one minute and the next you’ll headbang wildly. Even if you have no hair.

3. Dream Theater – To Live Forever (1991 & 1994)

o There are two versions to this song but they’re the same, only the production differs. But they do have one thing in common: they both rule.

4. Arsis – The Face of My Innocence (2004)

o This song absolutely crushes. It’s not terribly fast but it’ll make your head spin with its tempo changes and jackhammer drumming.

5. Vanessa Mae - I'm A-doun For Lack O' Johnnie (A Little Scottish Fantasy)

o Heard this way back when it first came out. But it was only this year I decided to download get it. One word: Superb.

And there you have it. 2007 is pretty much the best year for music, personally.

Till the next time, laters!

DragonForce – Inhuman Rampage

Quite possibly having one of the silliest band names ever, DragonForce is a force that will leave you wide-eyed, gobsmacked and makes you want to heave your breakfast, lunch and yesterday’s dinner. They play a brand of power metal (silliest name for a metal genre apropos of its silliness) that pushes the boundaries every single time they get their instruments plugged in. This, my friends is an album that will test your fortitude and sanity to the very end.

DragonForce makes no apologies for their brazen, ebullient, and pedal to the metal approach to their music. If they’re going to do something it might as well be to its most extreme they said once. Yessiree, this album has it all and more; riffs and solos that break the sound barrier, vocals that are so high Whitney Houston would be high just by listening to it while the songs are so metal it makes tanks as brittle as wooden horses. It’s like being bludgeoned by Winnie the Pooh. I kid you not.

Even if you have strapped yourself firmly to your seat, right from the start you are pummelled by the musical bombardment and praying for it to end. Your senses are pushed aside and you’re left gasping for air because your breathing space has been wiped out by these mongers of wanton metalness. Opener, Through the Fire and Flames, adroitly encompasses what DragonForce is all about; brimming with extreme confidence in their ability to create mind-boggling, inhuman progressions, and packing more than is necessary that they forget the most important element, the most nascent of things inherent to a composition, and that is the song itself. They go all the way and forget to come back. They sacrifice the listener’s constitution to tolerate such extremity that people of lesser vigour will chuck the album into a darkened corner never to be seen or heard from again. Ever. It’s like stepping on the accelerator of a Bugatti Veyron, the initial shock of gravity pushing your whole body into your seat is terrifying but highly thrilling. You go all the way and the world passes you by in a series of blurry instances. But after awhile you get sick, and even if you could go on there’s not enough road.

I’ve listened to a lot of metal albums, and trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve listened to death metal albums that blast from the first second all the way to the last. I’ve listened to black metal that had screaming and yelling that it became tedious when the 100^th time the vocalist says he wants to kill himself for Satan. But nothing prepared me for this. The first time I played it, I had to stop by the 4^th song. I was exhausted from all the over the top stuff. There is only so much theatrics one can stomach in one sitting. I know of some people who felt dizzy after the first 45 seconds of the aforementioned opener. Imagine what would have happened if they were subjected to the whole song which clocks in slightly over 7 minutes. To listen to DragonForce takes a very strong stomach and a pair of ears made of steel. I don’t know about you but death metal doesn’t seem that brutal after all.

Initial Rating: 5/10

Current Rating: 6/10