I'm gonna be writing for Heathen Harvest!

These fine people here. And after I got their name wrong in my Seeds of Iblis vid as well.

This might actually be the encouragement I need to get off my arse and actually keep to a consistent update schedule.

That sounds serious.

Looks like I'm not going to be browsing there for a while.

EDIT: Wait... it's April Fools Day. That occurred to me literally seconds after I posted this.

Fuck me, I'm slow at this time of night.

The title was ironic about four years ago.

I´ve been mixing my ass off and things are going smooth and steady now and the
album will be released late summer. Stay tuned for bigger updates about the
album (or should we say "albums", wink wink!) - Jari Mäenpää, Wintersun

It may have been a while since my first run at this blog, but at least two things haven't changed: Wintersun still haven't released their almost impossibly hyped sophomore album Time after half an eternity of delays and setbacks, and I'm still waiting for it with bated breath. I can't think of a single other metal band who have had a eight-year gap between two albums without having split-up and subsequently reformed; the closest I can come up with are the seven years between Judas Priest's Painkiller in 1990 and Jugulator in 1997. As such, it speaks to just how much goodwill Wintersun's self-titled debut generated back in 2004 that there are still people on tenterhooks to hear more, although Jari's claims that the delays are partly due to the album's insane technical specs (500 tracks per song is the soundbite - for reference, Nightwish's Imaginaerum had about 350) haven't hurt either.

But it looks like the 'Sun is finally being glimpsed after a very long night. As you can see above, Jari's now saying late summer this year, and although deadlines have been broken numerous times before, the signs are positive that this time it's for real. Mixing is apprently going smoothly, they're slated to play a headline European tour in autumn which I doubt organisers would go for if there wasn't a long awaited album release to support it, and "late summer" is only five and a half months at the absolute most. A promo track or a compilation of samples would really seal the deal, but it seems that at long last the planets have aligned.

That sly little "or should we say 'albums'" is interesting in its ambiguity. Has Time filled out to two discs in the process of mixing and the term "double album" just doesn't exist in Finnish nomenclature? Or is a follow up already on the cards. Enticing stuff in either case.

As to what we should actually expect... well, as much of a fiasco as the creation of this record has been, and in spite of the tendency of media with really overlong gestation periods to end up exhibiting a kind of "Spruce Goose" effect, I'm still optimistic. Based on the numbers Jari's been throwing around for years, the album sounds like a behemoth of unprecedented proportions, and with the music made as massive and epic as possible being the subject of some one-upmanship in metal these days (see: Blind Guardian, Nightwish, Therion, Epica, Rhapsody of Fire, Virgin Steele, and pretty much the entire prog metal scene since Images and Words), it should be something to see a record that takes this tendency to its remotest extreme ever if nothing else. That, and the live bootlegs of the track The Way of the Fire that surfaced last summer were incredible. Even with awful sound quality, the song is a joy to listen to, and hearing it with crisp, heavy, clearly distinguished production and orchestration that's more than a semi-audible aural smudge ought to render it easily the best thing they've ever done. Yes, I realise that includes both Starchild and Winter Madness. I love the debut album, but in some ways it feels like a proof of concept for bigger and better things. Wintersun's sound is overwrought and over-the-top by nature, and as long as Jari embraces that sound and channels it correctly, he only stands to gain from making Wintersun more massive, glossy and grandiose.

It's unreasonable to hope for any album to bear up under eight years of expectations, but I can't help but set the bar high. Worst case scenario (other that another delay), Time ends up being an elaphantine monument to creative hubris that buckled under the weight of its own ambition, which still sounds more interesting than the workaday bullshit which makes up 95% of the Nuclear Blast roster. Best case, it tears the universe a new arsehole and leads us to a brave new world of epic melodic death metal. Either way, it'll be a day one purchase for me, and if you love metal, it should be for you too.

Die For Metal

The Questionable Truth

Limp Bizkit are engaged in making "the heaviest, most crazy metal record of all time."

Those among you who haven't yet laughed today, you're welcome.

Faster than a laser bullet, etc. etc.

Yep, it's that time again kids. Dragonforce are back and more in need of ritalin than ever before. Their new album The Power Within - their first studio outing in four years - is due for release in April, and the first official promo track entitled Fallen World hit the web a few days ago.

I'm the kind of asshole who'll dependably boast that he liked something before it was cool, but it's true that I caught Dragonforce earlier than most people. Back in mid-2005 they were one of the bands that shepherded me out of my crap metal-but-not-really Kerrang! fodder phase and into the world of REAL METAL, where men are hairy and guitar solos are long. Ever since Through the Fire and Flames became famous as the greatest challenge the Guitar Hero franchise had to offer, there's been a considerable amount of backlash against their straight-from-the-adrenal-gland stylings, particularly from power metal purists; to this day, you can't swing a dead cat in a Youtube comments section for a Blind Guardian or Lost Horizon song without hitting someone wishing Dragonforce death by stoning. Well sure, their music is essentially shallow, their songs at once extremely formulaic and suffering from rampant ADHD. However, even though I moved on to greener pastures around the time Ultra Beatdown came out, I've never really stopped liking Dragonforce. They're fun, they're energetic and they bear absolutely no pretensions about what they are.

The new track (embedded below) is an encouraging sign in a few ways. The band's DNA is basically unchanged; Herman Li has apparently claimed that this is their fastest song ever, not that I could really say I noticed, seeing as after a certain point the human ears lose their ability to distinguish between stupidly fast and hyperbolically stupidly fast. What is noticeable is that the songwriting is considerably tighter than usual, which I rate as a positive. I generally like my music epic and sprawling, but it's encouraging that Dragonforce actually do know how to bring a song in under five minutes long (Strike of the Ninja doesn't count). Also graciously absent is the blatant studio artifice that plagued Inhuman Rampage and to a lesser extent Ultra Beatdown; no 8-bit video game sound effects here. I still think Dave Mackintosh's use of blastbeats is a bit excessive, a suffocating drumming technique that should only ever be used advisedly in power metal, but hey, Dragonforce have only ever evolved in baby steps, so I'll take what I can get.

Of course, this is all skirting the one big change, which is the first new song featuring new singer Marc Hudson, replacing Z.P. Theart. A few long-time fans have voiced their displeasure about the change, but personally, I was never really that attached to Theart, and I've been on Hudson's side ever since the video announcing his arrival to the band, in which he lets rip a twelve-second war cry that could just about be described as "Heimanian". On Fallen World, he's mostly content to ape Z.P.'s style, but I'm holding out hope that on the new album he'll distinguish himself with a few good sustained, full-voiced banshee screams like an old-school power metal singer. Time will tell. Either way, Dragonforce have piqued my interest for the first time in quite a while.

"I've... heard things you people wouldn't believe."

If you're a fan of prog rock at its most pompous, bombastic and head-spinningly creative, chances are that Arjen Lucassen is a name you're already familiar with. His project Ayreon was one of the premier institutions of prog for over a decade for two good reasons; firstly, the gargantuan, trippy meta-narrative that linked all of its recordings (most of them double-albums) together into one of the most expansive conceptual tapestries in all of music, and secondly, that in spite of the fact that Ayreon was essentially Lucassen's personal vehicle, over the years it played host to literally dozens of guest vocalists, each given their respective characters to play in Lucassen's stories. Ayreon's guest have included some pretty illustrious names in the past, among them Devin Townsend, James LaBrie, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Daniel Gildenlöw, Russell Allen and Bruce Goddamn Dickinson.

Sadly, Ayreon was put on ice after 2008's (kinda underwhelming) effort 01011001, but then again, Arjen Lucassen is one of those slightly unhinged overachievers who seem to be drawn to prog - for every one of his projects that ends, another five seem to spring up in their wake. He has one underway now, in fact, and in its making he seems to have topped himself with regards to awesome and esoteric guest spots:

Yup. Rutger Hauer, he of Blade Runner and Hobo With A Shotgun fame. He's not the first name that would've jumped to my mind for an actor to do a guest spot on a rock or metal album, but when I think about it it makes more and more sense, considering the penchant for monologues he demonstrated in his two most famous roles. Yeah, he's usually more quietly intense than hammy or bellicose, but that may well be more in keeping with Lucassen's typically atmospheric, introspective kind of music. I love me some grandiose concept albums, and this has got me excited now to hear what sort of soap-opera DMT trip Lucassen has planned this time. That, and I'm just happy that an actor I like is being paired with a musician whose work I enjoy and respect, considering Orson Welles and Christopher Lee were taken decades ago by vacuous cheesemongers Manowar and Rhapsody of Fire respectively.

No, really. Orson Welles narrates on Manowar's debut album. It was 30 years ago, and I still can't quite get my head around that.

Happy birthday Quorthon.

Tomas Börje Forsberg, founder and frontman of Bathory and better known by his stage alias of Quorthon, was found in his apartment having died of heart failure on June 3rd 2004. Had he lived, he would've been 46 years old today. Bathory were one of the greatest and most influential metal bands of all time (their 1988 LP Blood, Fire, Death holds the distinction of being my personal favourite metal album ever), having not only provided the blueprint for the genres of black metal and viking metal in the 80s and early 90s, but having also set benchmarks for a primal, passionate, lo-fi sound that remains practically unsurpassed anywhere in the genre. Although his work may not have been as widely known or renowned as that of artists like Cliff Burton, Dimebag Darrell or Ronnie James Dio, his premature passing is felt every bit as accutely among those who loved and admired what he accomplished. Happy birthday Quorthon; I hope you're getting shitfaced up there in Valhalla right now.

Come to the Sabbath!

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/entertainment/article_212399362.shtml

So it only took four-and-a-half decades, but it looks like the Black Sabbath is finally being acknowledged as a local holiday. I can't really think of many better reasons to celebrate being an inhabitant of Birmingham.