Owner: too.many.records. URL:http://toomanyrecords.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 06:42:29 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: records. old or new, mushy or brutal, popular or obscure, inspired or boring. no boundaries, just records. too many records. Site statistics:Click here
the main character 2006-09-20 12:01:00 dark tranquillity - 'character'released: january 25, 2005century mediasongs: 1. the new build 2. through smudged lenses 3. out of nothing 4. the endless feed 5. lost to apathy 6. mind matters 7. one thought 8. dry run 9. am i 1? 10. senses tied 11. my negationIf you want to quickly define this band, you could do far worse than calling them the thinking man's quintessential metal band. In the last decade they have proven themselves to be quite far ahead of mostly everyone else, and consistently so. There is a sense of purpose, of meaning, at every Dark Tranquillity release. Not that there's anything (thematically) wrong with demons or drugs or death, to namecheck just a few examples of overused topics, but Dark Tranquillity go at it the hard way, and you get chaos theory, philosophy, art, psychology and if you read one of their obviously fascinated-with-language-like lyric sheets you will get an idea without me going on about it. The hardest thing about this approach is that you com
farewell 2006-09-18 10:24:00 sentenced - 'the funeral album'released: april 2003century mediasongs: 1. may today become the day 2. ever-frost 3. we are but falling leaves 4. her last 5 minutes 5. where waters fall frozen 6. despair-ridden hearts 7. vengeance is mine 8. a long way to nowhere 9. consider us dead 10. lower the flags 11. drain me 12. karu 13. end of the roadNow that the long-awaited DVD 'Buried Alive', containing a host of extras and the entire farewell concert of this illustrious Finnish band (on which, according to reports, there are several shots of yours truly in the front row...), is finally upon us, it's worth remembering their final album, relevant in the context of their influential career.The two short instrumentals present in this record, the savage 'Where Waters Fall Frozen' and the soft acoustic 'Karu', are perhaps the best symbolic summary of Sentenced's musical career, particularly after the change of vocalist, after the album 'Amok'. Since then, their tales of sadness, sorro
the crack of doom 2006-09-12 11:41:00 yob - 'the illusion of motion'released: october 19th, 2004running time: 50'00"metal blade recordssongs: 1.ball of molten lead 2.exorcism of the host 3.doom #2 4.the illusion of motionUnder this mysterious three letter name lies one of the brightest prospects of doom metal, a band that has been slowly but surely captivating several factions of the more unconventional musical circles. 'The Illusion Of Motion' is their debut, released in 2004 after an already impressive self-titled demo.What is great about Yob is that they manage to create something new out of a concatenation of clear influences. The development and dynamics of the huge songs (the last track clocks in at 26 minutes) bring to mind, if you can quite imagine that, Neurosis jamming with Sleep. There are hazier, more stoner parts in the vein of Electric Wizard or Burning witch, and the rockier moments owe some dues to Black Sabbath and, more contemporarily, to High On Fire. If you're at all into this kind of music, I exp
do the black stomp 2006-09-06 11:01:00 ajattara - 'kuolema'released: may 2003playing time: 33'43"spikefarmsongs: 1.antakaa elää 2.surman henki 3.haureus 4.huoran alla 5.ikiyössä 6.musta leski 7.sielun särkijä 8.kituvan kiitos 9.helvetissä on syntisen taivas 10.rauhassa Their new album 'Äpäre' is just out, but before I review it in a couple of weeks I think it's worth it to look back to 'Kuolema', this Finnish band's finest hour so far. Ajattara were originally a side project of Pasi Koskinen, the former vocalist for Amorphis. Before you draw any conclusions, the sole similarity between the two bands (including Pasi's vocal performance) is the usage of ancient Finnish history as their lyrical theme. Even so, the focus here is on much darker topics thereof.Ajattara is a bit like Pasi's evil twin spewing out all the bad blood. Although Pasi (who goes by the name of Ruoja here) was still in Amorphis when this came out, it's understandable why he felt safe enough to dedicate himself 100% to Ajattara shortly
the last highway 2006-09-04 23:03:00 johnny cash - 'american v - a hundred highways'released: july 4, 2006running time: 42'53"american recordingssongs: 1. help me 2. god's gonna cut you down 3. like the 309 4. if you could read my mind 5. further on up the road 6. on the evening train 7. i came to believe 8. love's been good to me 9. a legend in my time 10. rose of my heart 11. four strong winds 12. i'm free from the chain gang nowFor all the musically questionable projects which he has been involved with, for at least one thing Rick Rubin must be given an enormous amount of credit for, and that is the revitalization of Johnny Cash. Rubin picked up a rather forgotten and time-misplaced Cash and helped him forge what are arguably the best albums of his career. For someone with Johnny Cash's historical musical past, this re-invention, this diving deep into americana and traditional music, speckled with some impeccably chosen rock covers that exposed cash to an entirely new audience and made him almost universal, is a
grey is the way 2006-08-29 17:35:00 harmaa - 'airut:aamujen'released: december 2004utustudiosongs: 1.saapuminen 2.seitsensarvi 3.lävitseni kaikkeen 4.luopumisen laulu 5.kuvajainen 6.oikea sointi 7.kahluu 8.hiensynty 9.läheltäHarmaa (which, in Finnish, means 'Grey') is an offshot of the better known Finnish band Tenhi. In fact, 'Airut:aamujen' is the follow-up to a saga first started on a Tenhi record, 'Airut:ciwi'. Therefore, the music is not a million miles away from The tenhi sound, the contemplative, quiet melancholy being the prevalent norm in these compositions.However, Harmaa strips that whole sound to its bare minimum. The 9 songs on this record are a sparse tapestry of piano as the main composition vehicle, accompanied by soft acoustic guitars, vocals and percussion. Unlike Tenhi, the guitars are mainly used for texture, while the vocals (apart from the wonderful male/female duet 'Luopumisen Laulu', the only half-upbeat song of the record) are mostly neutral and monotone, like an emotion-less version
spellbound 2006-08-25 12:59:00 the black heart procession - 'the spell'released: may 8, 2006touch & go songs: 1. tangled 2. the spell 3. not just words 4. the letter 5. the replacement 6. return to burn 7. gps 8. the waiter #5 9. places 10. the fix 11. to bring you backEven for indie rock standards, The Black Heart Procession are very unusual. Ever since their mysteriously-titled (just numbers) first albums they have set themselves apart from the norm. Opearating within a very gloomy musical framework, their oddball concept albums have displayed labyrinthine songs that are a mixture of desolation, bitterness but also orchestration and cheeky sense of humour at the same time.With a clear side-stepping evolution process so far, never really rehashing ideas while still maintaining a clear band identity, there was some curiosity to see what they would come up with to follow up the eerily latin-tinged 'Amore Del Tropico', after a worrying silence of four years. In another side-step, they have opted to do slightly mor
the devil has all the best songs 2006-08-24 18:05:00 deicide - 'the stench of redemption'released: august 21, 2006earache1. the stench of redemption 2. death to jesus 3. desecration 4. crucified for the innocence 5. walk with the devil in dreams you behold 6. homage for satan 7. not of this earth 8. never to be seen again 9. the lord's sedition 10. black nightAnother day, another ass-kicking return from an extreme metal leading name! With Slayer (see previous post), Mastodon and Deicide, August 2006 is shaping up as a metalhead's dream. As you might have guessed by that, much like Slayer's new album, 'The Stench Of Redemption' is the best thing the veteran Florida death metal outfit has done in many a year.Turns out that kicking out the Hoffman brothers was the creative whipping the band needed. Jack Owen and Ralph Santolla picked up the guitars and, quite frankly, they proceed to shred all over the place on this record. There's no two ways about it - the Owen/Santolla pair deliver the finest riff-fest we've heard since last yea Read more:songs
2006 album of the year 2007-05-07 12:50:00 tom waits - 'orphans - brawlers, bawlers and bastards'' The first thing that needs to be perfectly clear is that Tom Waits is the coolest man in the world. If you still need any evidence besides listening to his records, just go on youtube and look for a few live performances or interviews. Seriously, do. Few, if any, in the history of recorded music, have assumed so many roles and characters and musical personalities with the same elusive other-worldness, yet very deeply rooted to the world at the same time. Waits goes beyond the mere songwriter, or musician even. There is this aura about him that seemingly seems to turn every single artistic output from his part into something that truly matters. Whether he's the drunk loser singing his blues down at the local bar, the creepy carnival barker, the (anti-)religious prophet or the junkyard guy assembling new songs from discarded trash, or more yet, there is the unmistakable, unconventional, unique Tom Waits mark about it.'Orphans'
helenic horror 2007-10-14 16:38:00 ravencult - 'temples of torment'released: september 2007dark essence recordssongs:1. the sigil of baphomet 2. in times of demise 3. onslaught command 4. blessed in heresy 5. commence the burning of heavens 6. the nightsky codex 7. utter cold void 8. the needles of truthAfter a few more months of absence, nothing better to kick too.many.records. back to life than a bit of fucked-up black metal from hell, right? Well, it's not really hell, it's Greece, but don't let that little fact affect your judgement of Ravencult, because there is little Mediterranean-ness, or none at all, in their music. Unlike, say, Rotting Christ, to keep it in Greece, or Negură Bunget, to go a little bit up north to Romania, who are both living proof that black metal can jolly well have nothing to do with creepy Nordic woods, Ravencult have chosen not to wear their geographical origins on their sleeves. 'Temples Of Torment', their debut album, goes in the same direction that the couple of demos and the EP Read more:horror
Red and raw 2007-12-12 17:02:00 crooked fingers - 'red devil dawn'released: january 2003merge recordssongs:1. big darkness 2. don't say a word 3. you can never leave 4. bad man coming 5. you threw a spark 6. boy with (100) hands 7. sweet marie 8. angelina 9. disappear 10. carrion dovesSome records are better enjoyed in a certain state of mind. Despite its consistent quality that has made 'Red Devil Dawn' a weekly revisited record of mine since its release in 2003, it's clearly an album for the brokenhearted. Not that Eric Bachmann's band (now performing solo, after an outrageously beautiful first album, 'To The Races') have ever been a bundle of laughs, but there's a strangely euphoric quality about this album's sadness, an almost resigned, contemplative weight of the spirit that can suddenly break into song for a little while just because a pretty bird passed overhead.It's the storytelling that does it, too. Bachmann can sound deeply personal in his lyrics, going to the point of naming names (Angelina in
Best of 2007 - #14 2008-03-11 06:46:32 14. mayhem - 'ordo ad chao' Actually, if you don't mind me lapsing out of my Mr. Reviewer tone for a while, I've got the perfect real life episode to explain exactly what it feels like to listen to 'Ordo Ad Chao'. It was a night of intense, erm, alcohol sampling, and my friends who participated in the event stayed at my place, after locomotion slowly stopped being an option. One of them stayed on the sofa on the living room, where we had been listening to some music on an mp3 player, which was left on by forgetfulness. After a while, and we are talking about someone who's into the most fucked-up music you can think of, he woke up, uncomfortable and confused, from an unpleasant sleep, wondering what it was that was giving him such a nasty feeling. It turned out that the mp3 player that had
Best of 2007 - #15 2008-03-07 05:31:30 15. caïna - 'mourner' [review published on issue #80 of LOUD! magazine, translated and slightly adapted for too.many.records.]Shortly after Alcest blew me away, the perfect companion for 'Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde' came out, and companion can even be interpreted in several ways. Alcest's album is a soft, pastoral affair, essentially feminine in its aesthetics and sensitivity, while 'Mourner' is a sort of masculine counterweight to the environments lived in Neige's work. Equally born from a solitary musician's work, young Andrew Curtis-Brignell, who doesn't feel at all the need to hide behind a demoniac alter-name (despite being a LaVey follower), 'Mourner' is the dark and disturbed face of the ambient genre. Something so scarily enveloping as 'Hideous Gnosis' is an eloquent demonstrati
Best of 2007 - #16 2008-03-06 18:09:03 16. stinking lizaveta - 'scream of the iron iconoclast' [review published on issue #9 of Rock-A-Rolla magazine]With instrumental rock and metal on the rise like it would have been crazy to think about a decade or so ago, and bands popping out everywhere, each of them trying to out-warp the previous one, it’s very refreshing that there are three guys from Philadelphia keeping it pretty simple, with mammoth riffs shot out one after another, super tight, pounding rhythm section and squealing fuzzy solos are the norm here. Within this apparently limited framework, Stinking Lizaveta carve out sixteen dirty, rocking hymns. With lots of variety – take for example the opposition between the charging 2-minute ‘Gravitas’ and the slower, sunnier 6-minute ‘Unreal’ - throughout which your i
Best of 2007 - #17 2008-03-06 18:06:38 17. minotauri - 'ii' At some point, you just want to rock. For all the wonderful creativity, emotion, brutality, innovation or just plain weirdness that we music geeks like to look for endlessly in our piles and piles of precious records, sometimes we all just feel like putting something on that will rock. No frills, no complicated atmosphers, no heavily layered vocals, no journeys into an inner world of splendid depth - just the comfort that there are still people who can call a song 'Doom On Ice' and get away with it, tongue-in-cheek, just because they can. That's when we put on Minotauri. A cool way to look at this Finnish band is to imagine they're a sort of even more stripped down version of fellow Finns Reverend Bizarre. There's the same sort of back to the basics, old heavy stuff wo
Best of 2007 - #18 2008-03-05 08:57:44 18. portal - 'outre'' [review published on issue #82 of LOUD! magazine, translated and slightly adapted for too.many.records.]Profound Lore's releases have been consistently brilliant so far, especially in 2007, and Portal is no exception. These mysterious, hooded Aussies, with their second album, take the rotten carcass of death metal, decomposed and eaten by whatever creatures that come out of this portal, to levels of unimaginable degradation. At the core of their line-up, a couple of members from Star Gazer (if you don't know them, go get 'The Scream That Tore The Sky'. Like, now.), a band that does their own sort of sinister, cosmic death metal - Portal is just the opposite. Organic, mouldy, subterraneously monstrous. This music is abject, ugly and at first glance not subtle at all, b
Best of 2007 - #19 2008-02-29 05:29:50 19. evoken - 'a caress of the void' As the more extreme forms of doom, and funeral doom in particular, become a more broadly accepted proposition, more and more bands of the sort begin to show up, either newly formed, or being picked up more easily by record labels. It's also a time, however, to remember the ones who have been here before, and who still are the natural leaders of the genre. Direct spiritual descendents of the two entities that basically formed the entire blueprint for the genre, Disembowelment and Thergothon, they have been spreading their miserable, crawl-paced terror since the frightening 1996 EP 'Shades Of Night Descending'. Always at the forefront with such monuments of heavy slow doom such as 1998's 'Embrace The Emptiness' or the recent 2005's 'Antithesis Of Light', E
Best of 2007 - from #90 to #86 2008-02-28 04:06:40 90. [beforetherain] - '...one day less' The long awaited debut full length of these Portuguese doomsters is vast and contemplative to the point of feeling like a journey. In fact, it feels like several journeys in one - both a journey to the most dramatic of human emotions and also a musical journey to a time when Anathema were putting out albums like 'Serenades'. Darren-period Anathema is indeed the main reference point here, especially for Carlos D'Água's mournful vocals, but in a genre in which it's hard to innovate, it's the work of riffmeisters Valter Cunha and Hugo Santos (who is also in the gigantic post-doom band Process Of Guilt) in particular that lifts '...One Day Less' above the usual norm. The pair weave a perfectly balanced tapestry of sorrow without being mushy, of melancho
Best of 2007 - #20 2008-02-25 04:45:25 20. whiskey priest - 'hungry' And then, sometimes, you need to rest. You need to sit down, dim the lights and be quiet, let your troubles and your tiredness sink in. That's when you put 'Hungry' on. Whiskey Priest is Noah Hall and his guitar, together with a few friends, and it's the acoustic album of the year. The first line of the band's description on their MySpace reads I like quiet songs. I like honest songs., and that's precisely what 'Hungry' delivers. Songs that whisper and gently strum their words and chords to you, but also songs that resonate deeply very long after you've heard them because of the brutal honesty with which they are delivered. Noah also says love makes me want to sing songs about love, but don't think by that quote that you're getting into some sappy pink album.
Best of 2007 - from #25 to #21 2008-02-21 16:43:00 25. watain - 'sworn to the dark' / ixxi - 'assorted armament' (watain) (ixxi)A double-header! I could go into all kinds of wonderful justifications to have two records sharing one spot, and they'd actually be valid, like both Watain and IXXI embodying what's still relevant about black metal these days, kind of torchbearers for the genuine core of a genre, how both albums are similar beasts of misanthropic aggression, all that. All true, but this is actually a bit of a cop-out to hide the fact that I discovered IXXI, shamefully, when this list was already well underway, and 'Assorted Armament' is way too good to leave out. While we were furiously headbanging in the car to it, noticing that it wasn't a million miles away from 'Sworn To The Dark', my bestest friend JMR suggested th
Best of 2007 - reaching halfway! From #50 to #46 2008-02-21 08:19:53 50. behemoth - 'the apostasy' [review published on issue #162 of Terrorizer magazine]Behemoth have been worryingly average for a while now, and the fact that this less inspired (by their standards) period has coincided with a rise in their commercial status, especially in the United States, is a very valid cause of concern for fans of these Polish giants. ‘Demigod’ was a step further into their definitive affirmation as a death metal band, as opposed to their blackened earlier output, but it was a bland, uninspired step which left several question marks on what would be the ideal direction to follow on the next release. Their commercial future might be relatively secure, with the kind of popularity they seem to hold now, but purely musically speaking, a lot hangs on ‘The Apostasy’.
Best of 2007 - from #30 to #26 2008-02-20 09:01:44 30. the great deceiver - 'life is wasted on the living' [review published on issue #163 of Terrorizer magazine]Shame that metalcore has become such a dirty word, otherwise it would be a perfect term to describe bands that actually can appeal to the sensitivities of both hardcore and metal audiences by doing a bit more than just mixing clean and rough vocals and doing a lot of breakdowns. As it is, it’s hard to describe The Great Deceiver’s new album without alienating the genre purists by the end of the first sentence. It’s their loss anyway. Tomas Lindberg (ironically enough, as At The Gates are often cited as an influence on the current “metalcore” bands) and Kristian Wahlin’s band has defied easy categorization ever since 1999’s ‘Cave In’, with each album a potent cock
Best of 2007 - from #35 to #31 2008-02-19 18:32:03 35. iron and wine - 'the shepherd's dog' It's been rather hard for those of us who fell in love with Sam Beam's first couple of softly hushed, minimalist guitar-picking albums, the unforgettable 'The Creek Drank The Cradle' and 'Our Endless Numbered Days', to follow his inevitable evolution into a more arranged, structured kind of composition, with more instruments and a few people around him colouring the songs. The 'Woman King' EP was okay, but it sort of passed you by, which raised my fears a bit for this album, but in the end Sam has been able to prove that no matter what the form is, the essence of his music can and will touch hearts regardless. Truth be told, there was little else to do with his old style anyway, and in this album he has thrown the doors of experimentation wide open.
Best of 2007 - from #40 to #36 2008-02-18 17:32:25 40. vital remains - 'icons of evil' I was utterly exhausted, devastated by three whole days of Wacken and a couple of hours away from a whole-day bus+train+plane ride without sleeping, but was still quite pissed off when Vital Remains didn't show up for their gig at the big German festival. And there's a reason - after 1349 played, I couldn't have imagined a better way to finish the whole thing off than a show heavily based on this ugly motherfucker of a record. 'Icons Of Evil' is the perfect companion piece to Deicide's trailblazing 'The Stench Of Redemption' (and Benton fronts the band here too). Everything that makes a good death metal album is here, as 'Icons Of Evil' is simultaneously vast and claustrophobic, sweeping and crushingly to-the-point. The tempo doesn't vary much from halfw
A short graphical pause. 2008-02-14 10:11:08 If you would allow the shameless plug, I would like to inform you that a new companion blog for our beloved (well, mine anyway) too.many.records. has been created. It's called too.many.photos. and its name is self-explanatory, I would think.I will try to keep it as straight to the point as this one. If all that matters here is records, then all that matters there is photos. It is not supposed to be a photographer's blog, as I don't think knowing which lens or shutter speed I used would significantly improve your experience of looking at it. It's time to let the images of our favourite musicians do all the talking.I hope you will enjoy it.Now, enough non-recordspeak. Onward!
Best of 2007 - from #45 to #41 2008-02-12 04:42:22 45. red harvest - 'a greater darkness' [review published on issue #34 of Unrestrained! magazine, slightly adapted for too.many.records.]Always a left-field band, Red Harvest have gone one step further into the unusual with this. These Norwegians have been refining their innovative industrialized thrash for well over a decade now, with Cold Dark Matter their most accomplished work to date, but A Greater Darkness is one mean motherload of an album that eclipses everything they’ve done so far in terms of sheer quality. The most phenomenal difference towards the other albums is the threatening, poisonous atmosphere of terror that stains the whole thing. The darkness on this album is indeed much greater than before – check out the coiled, about-to-explode venom of 'Hole In Me' or the disson
Best of 2007 - from #55 to #51 2008-02-07 17:02:34 55. entombed - 'serpent saints' Seventeen years, nine full length albums. Time flies, doesn't it? I'm not aware of the demographics of my readership, but I assume that some of you guys were toddlers when 'Left Hand Path' came out. Man, do I feel old. Entombed, however, don't - 'Serpent Saints' is yet another slab of dirty, heavy Entombed-metal that fits perfectly alongside their past discography. Entombed's career, like almost every band that has had a massive influence towards a genre, has always been marked by those first albums, up until 'Wolverine Blues' more or less. Unlike many of those bands, though, and even if every fan seems to have a different album to pick on, the fact is that Entombed have never released a bad album, not even an average one, if you look at it unbiased by your
Best of 2007 - from #60 to #56 2008-02-07 05:38:06 60. manowar - 'gods of war' 'Gods Of War' has turned, surprisingly, into the most divisive album of Manowar's long career. Sure, they have always been a factor of contention within metal as a whole. On one side you have the people who think they're silly and dumb, on the other all the fans who realize that the over-the-top posturing is exactly the point of Manowar and are therefore free to enjoy the music, that has been of a superior quality very often, something which is often overlooked because of the whole image the band generates. Few casual listeners think that Manowar actually have written, among other things, a haunting, crushing doom song ('Hatred'), gorgeous metal ballads ('Master Of The Wind', 'Courage', 'Heart Of Steel'), rousing epic cavalcades ('Black Wind, Fire And Steel', 'T
Best of 2007 - from #65 to #61 2008-02-04 18:10:40 65. the ocean - 'precambrian' The scope of 'Precambrian' is simply staggering. An ambitious double album (comprised of a mini-CD, 'hadean/archaean' and a "full" disc, 'proterozoic'), entirely conceptualized (and metaphorized, too) around the creation of the Earth, created by a band that's not even a band, but an open collective of musicians (their official name is actually The Ocean Collective), how's that for starters? By all this you might expect a dreamy, drawn out record with 20-minute songs, but that's where the Berliners surprise you. The music that bellows forth from their apparently huge rehearsal space is the finishing move to this overwhelming ambition, and it's surprisingly intense - a rather unique mixture between post-rock, Cult Of Luna especially, and vicious metallic hardcor
Best of 2007 - from #70 to #66(6) 2008-01-31 09:19:37 70. viaje a 800 - 'estampida de trombones' [review published on issue #159 of Terrorizer magazine]After a long silence, Spaniards Viaje A 800 return with their unusual take on stoner rock. Despite the relative conventionality of their music, very clearly influenced by Black Sabbath, Hawkwind and Kyuss, it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly sounds different about them. Indeed, the Spanish lyrics give it an air of exoticism that is rare in this sort of music, but the riffs are hypnotic enough for the language to be quickly forgotten after a couple of songs. Perhaps it’s the fact that Viaje A 800’s songs are more direct, less hazier, less stoned if you will, than your typical stoner rock. They not only avoid the drugged out, long repetitions common in some other bands of this kind, but the
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