Album Of The Week
Evanescence -
Evanescence
This week we have the self-titled,
third album from American rock band Evanescence, a band that have certainly
carved itself a major place in the world of rock and metal.
Like many, Evanescence, first came
to my attention in 2003 when their single, Bring Me To Life made a huge impact in
the UK when it went to number 1 in the singles chart and received extensive airplay.
With a hard rock track, glorious vocals from leading lady Amy Lee and a video
laced with gothic imagery the band grabbed me and I immediately bought their
debut album, Fallen, which is also went to number 1 in the UK as well as around
the world.
Move on 8 years to 2011 and the
band released their 3rd studio album and by which time they had
established themselves as a major rock band although one of the key players,
joint founding member Ben Moody had left the band due to various reasons. Although
his departure was acrimonious at the time his differences with Lee have been
settled and he has admitted she was the far more creative of the pair and she has
directed the band superbly well over the years.
Since 2007 Evanescence have had a consistent
line up and despite taking a break following their second album, The Open Door,
there was a solidity to the band going into the Evanescence album with a
clearly defined band sound and style.
Pivotal to everything Evanescence do
is the song writing, keyboards and vocals of Amy Lee who is adept at creating and
delivering radio friendly yet powerful and emotive rock music.
It was the overall quality and
consistency of this album that grabbed me on release and to this day, 14 years
later, its an album I rate very highly.
Of the 12 tracks on Evanescence
only 4 of them is over 4 minutes and virtually all of them have single potential
often with big choruses to really capture the listener. The cynic may ask are
they deliberately aimed at airplay as they maybe lack some of the variation
found with the European bands that operate within the same realm.
Regardless, this is easy listening
in terms of rock and metal and its something Evanescence do incredibly well, which
is why I have all 5 of their studio albums and their 2 live releases.
Evanescence toured this album
extensively and I saw them when they came to Plymouth in November 2011 and they
were superb. The following night I saw Within Temptation in London which has
nothing at all to do with this review but what the hell.
Commercially, the album performed
very well across the world and it reached number 4 in the UK albums charts
although the four singles released made very little impact. Does this mean that
the average Evanescence listener is more album based rather than the more
disposable singles listener.
Anyway, this is superb album for someone
to dive into if they are new to the band although given their success I would
be surprised if your average rock fan of a certain age had not heard their
output.
My first selection is the lead single and opening track, What You Want, which opens the album with quite a full on guitar led heavy offering.
Greyscale -
Camouflage
We move into the realms of the electronic this week for what, so far, is the final album from German synth trio, Camouflage, with their 2015 release, Greyscale.
This comes almost 12 months since
the other of my 2 albums from this band was selected when Relocated was my
album of the week on 28th December 2024.
As I mentioned last year, Greyscale
was the first album I bought by Camouflage after the band came to my attention
in 2015 and I was immediately taken with their slightly melancholic yet very
melodic approach to synth based music. Many comparisons have been made to
Depeche Mode which can be largely attributed to the vocal style being very
similar to Dave Gahan.
However, there is far more to this
album than just Depeche Mode references and once one delves into the album
there is plenty of individuality within to enjoy.
There is a radio friendly feel to a
lot of this album, especially with the opening track and lead single, Shine but
there is enough variety and electronic experimentation to make Greyscale a good
listen.
My limited experience of Camouflage
is that had they had the same exposure as some of the other pioneers of synth
based music such as the aforementioned Depeche Mode, or Human League, Erasure
and the like, they could have been extremely commercially successful in the UK
although their albums have consistently charted in their home country of
Germany.
Although Camouflage have only
released 3 studio albums in the last 25 years they are still touring and last
year they released a career spanning compilation, Rewind To The Future And
Goodbye to mark their 40th anniversary.
Whether we any new material from
the band remains to be seen but as it stands Greyscale is an excellent album
for this longstanding and innovative band.
My opening selection is, as
mentioned above, the opening track and lead single from the album, Shine.
Violet – The Birthday
Massacre
We stay very much with a female fronted
rock theme this week, but with a twist, with the first of my 3 albums from Canadian
band, The Birthday Massacre and their second album, Violet.
Violet, released in 2005 was the
first album I bought after hearing the band via a gothic rock website and I was
impressed enough to buy the album.
What really grabbed me was the mix
of styles with elements of goth rock, touches of metal and layers of synths to give
a melodic darkwave atmosphere. All of this is topped off with the vocals of
Sara ‘Chibi’ Taylor who possesses a whimsical and fragile yet melodic voice
which adds a very unique dimension to the TBM sound.
What they do very well is mix the
innocence of childhood, especially found in some of the lyrics with the more sinister
elements of life and the struggles found in the formative years. This approach
is reflected in their striking artwork and emphasises their own stance of being
a visual as well as a sound based band.
Ironically, for me, its lyrically that
I find negatives with the band and some songs I find are diluted with weak or
poor lyrics but this is a very minor point.
Violet was the second album released
by TBM and seen by many as their breakthrough album following favourable
reviews at the time and 20 years later is regarded a classic from the band.
I think where Violet really hits
home is how it bridges the genres of gothic rock and metal with a sound that is
very unique without being copyist of the 80’s goth influences that are seen
widely within gothic rock and darkwave genres.
In short this is a very good album
if you are new to The Birthday Massacre.
My first selection is Lovers End, the first full track on the album following a short instrumental intro. Typical of the album, the song has a strong melody and dark lyric.
April Rain -
Delain
For this week’s album we get our first look at Dutch symphonic metal band Delain with their second album, April Rain, released in 2009.
Delain were formed in 2001 by
Martijn Westerholt, initially as a solo project after he had to leave his
earlier band, Within Temptation, due to poor health, a band he formed with his
brother Robert in 1996.
After an initial demo, Martijn
recruited singer Charlotte Wessels and Delain became a fully functioning band, moving
beyond the studio only project originally envisioned.
There are undoubtedly similarities between
Within Temptation and Delain but the later has forged there own path and sound in
what is a very crowded symphonic metal scene.
My own take on Delain is there sound
is maybe a little more radio friendly and within the metal genre they are on
the lighter side of the spectrum although there music incorporates all the key
elements of symphonic metal, with plenty of guitars and the orchestral blasts
with clean melodic female vocals.
It was this easy, accessible sound
that drew me to Delain and April Rain was the first of their albums to be added
to my collection and generally it is an album I enjoy.
Sometimes the genre of symphonic
metal can descend into the cheesy and that would be my one negative about
Delain but that is more lyrically than musically and that is me being ultra picky.
What April Rain does offer is some
very good, melodic yet powerful metal reminiscent of some early Nightwish albums
and has the same immediacy of bands such as Evanescence.
Delain has had a number of line up
changes with multiple guest and session musicians and on April Rain there are
guest vocals from Marko Hietala who for many years was the bass player and male
vocalist with Nightwish, a band the laid the template for female fronted metal.
This practice of incorporating guest
vocalists adds layers and variety to the band although at no point would I
consider Delain to be repetitive and over the years Charlotte Wessels has done
a good job of fronting the band.
However, in 2022, she decided to leave
the band to pursue other ventures and I actually thought her replacement, Diana
Leah, offered a new vocal dimension to the band.
Commercially, April Rain performed
well for the band charting across Europe and hitting number 14 in the Dutch
album charts and number 1 in the alternative charts.
My first selection from April Rain is
the opening and title track, a song that was subsequently released as the second
single from the album.
Crash Love - AFI
They are a band that it is difficult
to pin down to a specific genre because over their 12 album career (to date)
they are delved into various forms of rock music from hardcore punk to pop
punk, post-punk, goth rock and even an emo influenced sound.
For this reason alone, they have
always been a bit of a “hit or miss” band for me but when they do hit, they can
be superb.
I have listened a number of their
albums over the years, two of which I have bought, but some of them I just couldn’t
get into, often because of the vocals spoiled what was going on with the music.
However, in 2017 I bought their
self titled 10th studio album and that led me to take another look
at their back catalogue although I came to pretty much the same conclusions as
above I have been meaning to add their 2021 release, Bodies, to my collection
but for some have not got around to it yet.
So back to Crash Love, an album I
picked up a few years ago and its an album I really rate.
There is a maturity in the melodic
post-punk/alt rock sound with the album alongside a contained yet emotive vocal
delivery from Davey Havok.
As with other AFI albums, what
captures me in those “hit” moments is the guitars which moves from atmospheric
and layered to full on brute force punk rock delivery and with multi-vocal choruses
Crash Love has some very catchy, infectious songs.
There could be accusations of “stadium
rock” with the album especially as they dip into the more “pop punk” moments
but for me, this is a common trait with American punk bands but I think that’s what
makes them very accessible and underpins the radio friendly approach. Obviously
I am generalising massively but in the case of Crash Love, there is power and
pace but a lightness in terms of rhythm and melody.
All in all, it makes for a very
enjoyable album with some real moments of alternative rock quality and from
what I have heard one of the most accessible AFI albums. For me there of hints of
Placebo on this album and as well the nods to American pop-punk.
There are 12 songs on the album, all
between 3 and 4 minutes, there is nothing that overstays its welcome and
collectively they have a nice flow to make a well balanced album.
My first selection is the album
opener, Torch Song, an emotive song with a quite a deep but also disturbing
lyric of devotion and obsession.
Blackwater Park -
Opeth
This week we return to my metal collection and the first of my 8 albums by Swedish band Opeth, a band that due to the multiple styles they incorporate into their music are hard to define, although the blanket term of “progressive death metal” fits as well as any.
As I was going into metal with a new
openness I decided to give Opeth a listen after reading good reviews and their
name was often mentioned in “gothic metal” circles as well, another example of
their cross genre reach and dynamic.
My first album, therefore, was
their 2001 release, Blackwater Park, an album that over the last 25 years has
gained legend status both for the band but in the wider metal community, especially
within the artists to be classed as progressive metal.
This was the bands 5th
album and seen by many as their finest work to date and in some quarters, still
their best album although with a band that offers such varying soundscapes that
is up to the listener to discern. I have drifted in and out of Opeth’s music
over the years but there is no doubting that Blackwater Park is a highlight
within their impressive catalogue of releases.
I will be honest about this, Opeth’s
music is not the singalong, chart friendly crowd pleasers such as Bon Jovi or
Guns N’ Roses, instead, its complex, varied, melodic and discordant littered
with time and tempo changes, ranging from beautiful clean acoustic passages
before breaking into the guttural growl of death metal with soul churning
guitars.
Lyrically, the music is often
introspective with a gothic beauty that fits in well with the darker passages and
often with loss and devastation but also lighter moments, themes that are very
much in keeping the gothic and doom domains of metal.
There are 8 tracks on the standard
release of Blackwater Park and except for the acoustic and piano instrumental,
Patterns In The Ivy, only one of the songs is under 7 minutes but what we have
here is a beautifully complex album that takes us on a journey through everything
Opeth has to offer.
There have been many line-up
changes with Opeth but the constant is band leader, guitarist, vocalist and principle
song writer, Mikael Akerfeldt, who’s ability to craft and front one of metals
biggest names for over 30 years has earned many accolades and much recognition.
My opening selection from the album
is the first track, The Leper Affinity, a 10 minute opus that kicks off the
album in blistering style.
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