On Deep Politics, Grails’ oft-meditative instrumentation is dressed with an orchestral, cinematic ruching thanks in large part to the efforts of fiddler and composer Timba Harris (Master Musicians of Bukkake). Harris’ involvement on this album helps the Portland quartet wrap their avant-garde post-rock in celluloid and story-telling, and the overall effect is a dynamic soundtrack to curtains blowing in an empty room, cigarette smoke swirling under a lamp post on a rainy night, an empty bottle of desire hitting the floor after a passionate fight, or the bone-chilling glint of a slashing knife. This intricate score of crescendo noir works as both silent beauty and heavy terror, bandying about effluent sci-fi (“Future Primitive”), Italian craftsmanship (Bruno Nicolai’s “All the Colors of the Dark”), blushing romanticism (“Deep Politics”), prog-infused action (“Almost Grew My Hair”), and high-noon drama (“I Led Three Lives”) effortlessly, seamlessly, and extravagantly. Deep Politics doesn’t quite contain the mean zen of albums past, but it’s a creatively rich and enjoyable experience nonetheless. And remember, Grails nuts, the attraction that is Black Tar Prophecies Vol. 5 is supposed to be coming soon.
Italian power folk from 10 year veterans, Elvenking, who’ve ridden that long, singular path through the forest of glory, beset on either side by heathens, ravens, and cobblestone cottages with roaring fires and pints of mead. At once queer, organic, heavy, and melodious, Red Silent Tides blends Elvenking’s usual fiddle and lyre feel with epic, eye-lined riffing to create a tempest of catchy metal best suited for laser-lit arenas rather than jousting tournaments. It’s damn near impossible to pick out the most ridiculously delicious moments, but songs like “The Last Hour” and “What’s Left of Me” will surely stick in your head for days and leave you smiling like a drunk jester. Sure, compared to 2001′s Heathenreel or 2004′s Wyrd, there’s very little traces left of the fairy tale magic in what Elvenking offers, but I’ve always preferred their more pop-oriented power metal stuff anyway, so the fact that Elvenking now sounds like Blind Guardian, Edguy, Power Quest, or Throne of Chaos is pretty majestic as far as I’m concerned.
Check out the video for “The Cabal” from Red Silent Tides!
Ufomammut’s fifth album, Eve, is one chilling 45 minute possession separated into five movements, and its affection is wholly and shamelessly UNGODLY. When the music isn’t whispering to you in forked tongues and taunting you with an unnerving drone, it’s driving the heavy, black riff of DOOM right through your frayed soul. It’s a hellish soundscape of caverns and creatures in cloaks, punctuated by crimson spasms of cosmic catastrophe. What I’m getting at here is that this album is the aural equivalent of what would be going through your mind if you sliced open your inner thigh and watched the blood slowly drain out of your body until the darkness enveloped you, and should finally earn these evil Italians their own spot in the amp-worshiping cabal alongside monolithic motherfuckers like OM, Sunn O))), Earth, Boris, and the rest. Unkind stuff, man.
Grails
Elvenking
Ufomammut