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cd purchases and gigs
Nov. 6th, 2009 12:10 pmOk, so to sum up my recent cd purchases of note:
Swallow The Sun > Insomnium > Katatonia > Paradise Lost
...and that's about all that needs to be said. Each band put out a fairly typical album but the quality differs.
Recently I also got 'To Lay Like Old Ashes' by Austere which is supposedly in the 'depressive black metal' genre but to me sounds more like simpified mid-period Katatonia with someone wailing over the top of it, and 'They Whispered You Had Risen' by Cryptal Darkness, who were basically Australian doom/death band The Eternal before they started down the route to mediocrity. They had Martin Powell of My Dying Bride/Anathema/Cradle of Filth 'fame' playing on this album and the violins are definitely reminiscent of early My Dying Bride.
Speaking of Martin Powell, he was at the Paradise Lost and Katatonia gig on Wednesday in Sheffield, along with Nick Barker and probably various other important people from the world of British metal who I wouldn't recognise due to not being 'in' enough. The gig was mostly good although a little disappointing. Katatonia played well but I would have liked to have heard more songs that weren't from Viva Emptiness or The Great Cold Distance. They only played one song from the new album, which was 'Forsaker', not one of the 2 I would have expected ('The Longest Year' or 'Liberation').
As for Paradise Lost, it was strange to see Nick in a sleeveless t-shirt for probably the first time since 1995. Recapturing his metal youth? Who knows. The band seemed to play well for the most part but it was hard to enjoy the gig. Firstly, the awful sound. Aaron's guitar was too quiet, Greg's was too loud to the point of getting feedback between all the notes, and Steve's bass was louder than absolutely everything else in the room. At least Nick couldn't complain about the vocals which were fine this time. And the setlist was a bit narrowly focused for my tastes. I don't expect them to play anything from Lost Paradise or Believe In Nothing, but this time there was nothing from Gothic, Icon, Host, or the self-titled album either, if I remember correctly. And they didn't play Last Regret off the new cd either, instead preferring some of the more meandering tracks. Ah well.
No more gigs for a few weeks, but Swallow the Sun and Insomnium come around in early December. I still haven't received my tickets for that, but I did get a 'You were out' card from the bastards at Royal Mail regarding something that was sent to me by recorded delivery. That was more likely to be Bloodstock tickets than StS tickets, but who knows. Needless to say the Royal Mail card had a date on it that was at least a day earlier than when it appeared in my mail box, and that when I tried to arrange a redelivery online, it refused because it said the date I entered was illegitimate, as they only hold recorded mail for 7 days. The fact that the date given was 6 days ago counted for nothing, apparently. More than typical.
Swallow The Sun > Insomnium > Katatonia > Paradise Lost
...and that's about all that needs to be said. Each band put out a fairly typical album but the quality differs.
Recently I also got 'To Lay Like Old Ashes' by Austere which is supposedly in the 'depressive black metal' genre but to me sounds more like simpified mid-period Katatonia with someone wailing over the top of it, and 'They Whispered You Had Risen' by Cryptal Darkness, who were basically Australian doom/death band The Eternal before they started down the route to mediocrity. They had Martin Powell of My Dying Bride/Anathema/Cradle of Filth 'fame' playing on this album and the violins are definitely reminiscent of early My Dying Bride.
Speaking of Martin Powell, he was at the Paradise Lost and Katatonia gig on Wednesday in Sheffield, along with Nick Barker and probably various other important people from the world of British metal who I wouldn't recognise due to not being 'in' enough. The gig was mostly good although a little disappointing. Katatonia played well but I would have liked to have heard more songs that weren't from Viva Emptiness or The Great Cold Distance. They only played one song from the new album, which was 'Forsaker', not one of the 2 I would have expected ('The Longest Year' or 'Liberation').
As for Paradise Lost, it was strange to see Nick in a sleeveless t-shirt for probably the first time since 1995. Recapturing his metal youth? Who knows. The band seemed to play well for the most part but it was hard to enjoy the gig. Firstly, the awful sound. Aaron's guitar was too quiet, Greg's was too loud to the point of getting feedback between all the notes, and Steve's bass was louder than absolutely everything else in the room. At least Nick couldn't complain about the vocals which were fine this time. And the setlist was a bit narrowly focused for my tastes. I don't expect them to play anything from Lost Paradise or Believe In Nothing, but this time there was nothing from Gothic, Icon, Host, or the self-titled album either, if I remember correctly. And they didn't play Last Regret off the new cd either, instead preferring some of the more meandering tracks. Ah well.
No more gigs for a few weeks, but Swallow the Sun and Insomnium come around in early December. I still haven't received my tickets for that, but I did get a 'You were out' card from the bastards at Royal Mail regarding something that was sent to me by recorded delivery. That was more likely to be Bloodstock tickets than StS tickets, but who knows. Needless to say the Royal Mail card had a date on it that was at least a day earlier than when it appeared in my mail box, and that when I tried to arrange a redelivery online, it refused because it said the date I entered was illegitimate, as they only hold recorded mail for 7 days. The fact that the date given was 6 days ago counted for nothing, apparently. More than typical.
