Be'lakor's Stone's Reach Review

Being a crony of mine, art always haunts me whether it’s a sculpture or imagination and this time Perseus with the head of Medusa caused my cursor to click on Be'lakor's sophomore effort Stone's Reach. It was surely a good reflection of band's taste. At the first instance, the opening briefed me with something really inspired from Opeth followed by the lifting with heavy riff and the low end growls that gave me a similar vibe of Amon Amarth and Orphaned Land. Eventually, as the opening track proceeded further, I myself generated stimuli of having a progressive/melodic death/doom experience coming ahead. Although, it’s really easy to translate the tone with many similar acts like Dark Tranquillity, Opeth, Amon Amarth and last but not the least Insomnium, but I think, this is some sort of an amalgam of vast influences. I witnessed mixed elements of folk as well as atmospheric along with the overshadowed progressive melo-death. 

When there are lot of similar acts experimenting with the same genre, it is really hard to put something idiosyncratic but impressively, Be'lakor didn't let me put this down and proved to be a solid release. The songs have complex structures and time signatures as well as a balanced chord and lead-esque rhythms along with main leads. The tempo is not easily predictable nor the arrangement/sequence of riffs and have variations, From Scythe to Spectre can be taken as an example, Outlive the Hand has a unique starting that eventually changes to a different variation and so on. Those who are merely addicted to melo-death/progressive may have some Deja-vu experience as it sometimes feels that it might have the same kind of riffs or chord progression coming out frequently. The acoustics and keyboard played a pivotal role in creating the mood of the songs. Lyrically, it has surely a huge Pagan & Greek Mythology texture. Some songs have a deep cynicism’s influence that I observed and I think it is some sort of esoteric or abstruse to understand them to their actual intended meaning. The production/mixing of the album is credible, as of my previous experience, with the low-end growls, sometimes it feels like to have other instruments dominating more over the vocals but here, it is not that same case. Overall, this album may have some flaws but is inevitably a thumbs up from my side. 

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Redemption of death metal, Insomnium (Ephemeral EP Review)

Well, I wanted to review this band in particular when I had my hands on "In The Halls Of Awaiting", but I feel like; I might have more to write now after having this EP called "Ephemeral". Insomnium, many say as the pop-version of melo-death, lol! I don't know how?, but this band to me is one of the most creative & innovative in all respect. Although, a well educated personnel too. With smooth riffs, soothing melodies, melancholy harmonies along with the 'traditional' melo-death blend; all combines together to form Insomnium, I remember listening OSDM acts hailing from Finland like Xysma, Demigod, Demilich etc.; they are just bad-ass. The Finnish/Swedish/Norwegian trio produced and still producing finest metal bands. Children Of Bodom, Kalmah, Amorphis, Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Mors Principium Est, Norther, Sentenced, Omnium Gatherum, Swallow The Sun etc..yes the list will grow more and more with all these melo-death bands hailing from the same place as the Insomnium belongs too.What makes them more prominent and different from others is the combination of thematic lyrics with tuneful riffs, I don't know how to explain but they really do something really 'melodic'. 

In this release the key change was the replacement of Ville Vanni with Markus Vanhala of Omnium Gatherum on guitars despite any change in the sound you feel in. The EP was released somewhere in September, 2013 and contains four tracks, 'Ephemeral' is the only song. If you have experienced the band before, in the very first second you catch who is rousing the ear drums, with their usual playing style the song starts with their signature tone & rest the vocals lead your way to identify more, it is pretty good track to listen love the guitar work as I always do. Ville Friman knows how to create the real melody out of the lower strings. The EP also comprises of three instrumentals (mostly acoustic) that had recorded previously. 'The Emergence' & 'The Descent' were used in 'One for Sorrow' documentary. A must have band for melo-death wanderers but not for the 'kvlt' style listeners.