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!
BXI, better read as Boris + Ian, is a seemingly odd collaboration between Japanese experimental/stoner/metal/drone/doom giants, Boris, and everyone’s favourite spiritual tambourine shaker (when he’s not wearing a track suit and pretending to be Jim Morrison, that is), Ian Astbury. Personally though, I was stoked when the news first dropped about this hook-up because it seemed to me that throwing a huge stack of noise behind the salty ol’ shaman might actually resurrect his inner love child. I think it’s done just that. The four-song EP kicks off with “Teeth and Claws” and sure enough, Boris’ slow, deep, melodious rhythm goads Astbury’s voice into prophetic incantations about love, illumination, renewal, and salvation. Then Boris drops a brutally heavy, attacking riff on “We Are Witches” as Astbury grows larger at the pulpit, casting an army of one thousand ravens into the night. It ends, quite fittingly, with “Magickal Child,” the all-encompassing comedown, a sweetly distorted lysergic ballad full of atmospheric soul, but not before the procession is interrupted for Boris’ Astbury-less cover of The Cult’s “Rain,” which is a stand-out here thanks to its truly remarkable psychedelic pop vibe and guitarist Wata’s ghostly, porcelain voice. The power of BXI is mighty, brothers and sisters. Let it compel you.
Elvenking
BXI