Movies And Metal

Posts Tagged ‘The Resurrection Sorrow’

Although comic book reviews are not normally our thing here at www.moviesandmetal.com, sometimes it does us good to look beyond the music  and films that ‘our’ people are producing and have taste of something different.  And that is what Alex Dementia, frontman with MAM favourites The Resurrection Sorrow  and Midnight Dreams Productions head honcho, has gone and done.

Scripted by Dementia, illustrated by New York artist Isaac Carey Nejako and designed by Seldon Hunt, Vrykolakas: The Unholy is the first in a series of comic books following a story with its roots in the Greek mythology of the Vrykolakas – the dead who return to life to cause misery to the living.  As this is only the first in the series – and is only twenty-three pages long – there isn’t a great deal here to scrutinise, although it must be said that the combination of Nejako’s ‘less-is-more’ illustrative style and an opening scenario that begs the reader to ask questions aplenty is a good start and evocative of The Crow in feel. 

So as soon as issue number two is available then we shall strive to bring you more thoughts.  In the meantime, Vrykolakas: The Unholy is available from the Midnight Dreams Productions website at http://www.midnightdreamspro.com/vrykolakas.html where you can also buy The Resurrection Sorrow’s brilliant debut album Hour of the Wolf, or you can click on the above image.

British doom legends Cathedral’s ninth album The Guessing Game sees the band in familiar territory, with the same hip-swivelling grooves that have characterised most of their output since 1995’s The Carnival Bizarre, but with a few stylistic tweaks here and there.  First track proper Funeral of Dreams contains pretty much everything that makes Cathedral great - mellotrons, proggy time changes, stomping psychedelic instrumental passages, a healthy dose of what sounds like sixties and seventies kids t.v. theme tunes (they aren’t, but there’s a definite Magic Roundabout vibe throughout) Lee Dorrian’s distinctive vocal groaning, including some neat spoken word breakdowns that for some reason bring to mind Bill Bailey on one of his musical experiments – and is all executed in the band’s typically eccentric style.  There seems to be an emphasis on throwing a few curveballs just when you think you know where each song is going; for example,   La Noche del Buque Maldito starts off all weird and trippy before kicking in with one of the most upbeat tunes a so-called doom band has ever produced.  That said, there is plenty of traditional Cathedral fare on offer here too; Edwige’s Eyes pounds and grinds (and even contains the riff to Black Sabbath’s Hole in the Sky) like it was 1993 all over again.

The production, again courtesy of Down/Crowbar collaborator Warren Riker, is a bit slicker than their last couple of albums, but as there is so much going on here with regard to layers of sound then a bit of clarity is most welcome.  With the band having been going for over twenty years, and this line-up (completed by guitarist Gaz Jennings, bassist Leo Smee and drummer Brian Dixon) together for fifteen, there’s still no shortage of ideas on how to twist the band’s core sound and keep things fresh.  Still innovative, still relevant and still brilliant, this is a cracking album from one of the UK’s most unique and underrated bands

Rating: 9/10

Standout Tracks: Funeral of Dreams, Death of an Anarchist, Edwige’s Eyes, Casket Chasers, La Noche del Buque Maldito (aka Ghost Ship of the Blind Dead), Requiem for the Voiceless, Journey’s into Jade.

For Fans of:  Black Sabbath, Corrosion of Conformity, Danzig, Sheavy, Church of Misery, The Resurrection Sorrow, Candlemass, Heaven & Hell.

For more information on Cathedral go to: www.cathedralcoven.com

Click on images to purchase.

Ever since Black Sabbath put Birmingham on the musical map in the late sixties there have been countless bands from the region picking up the gauntlet and trying to be heavier than the last.  Judas Priest followed Sabbath and stepped up the aggression until the thrash/grind explosion in the 80′s with bands like Godflesh and Napalm Death reshaping the extreme metal landscape.  I Am Colossus also hail from the Black Country and can justifiably claim to be one the most punishingly heavy bands to emerge in recent times.  

The press release states that the band was formed with ‘an almost tunnel vision goal of forming the heaviest, filthiest and scariest live band’, and if their live shows are anything like this album then they’ve probably achieved their goal.  Wallowing in the snail-paced misery that Cathedral made their name with, I Am Colossus brings nothing new to the table in terms of style, but what is does do is reinforce the point that heavy doesn’t necessarily mean playing as fast as you can.  Put it this way, the album only picks up the pace slightly during a semi-acoustic near-instrumental placed at track number six; after that there’s only two songs left, and they total nearly half an hour of the some of the doomiest riffing heard since Tony Iommi first said “Hey lads, I wonder what it would sound like if I tuned my guitar to C#?”.  Combine the deathly-slow grinding with vocalist Karl Lane’s guttural howl, and what we have is the audio equivalent of pure gloom and funereal atmosphere.

The one problem plagued by metal bands since the dawning of time has always been to try, and usually fail, to capture their live sound and energy in a studio, and I Am Colossus are no different.  The production, although suitably grimy, doesn’t seem to add any dynamics when the song really needs it, resulting in any big booms or crashes sounding fairly flat, but this is their first full-length album so hopefully this can be put down to inexperience.  To make an album as defiantly uncommercial as this takes dedication, and if the band have got what it takes to stay the course then hopefully there will be more great albums to come.

Rating: 8/10

Standout Tracks: Still Life, In the Name of the Father, Moss Icon.

For Fans of: Candlemass, Cathedral, The Resurrection Sorrow, Kingdom of Sorrow, Crowbar, Black Sabbath.

For more information on I Am Colossus visit: www.myspace.com/iamcolossus

I Am Colossus is released on February 22nd by Casket Music.