Written By Kevin McSweeney
Welcome to Seven Deadly Songs, Metal Lair’s weekly feature, in which we come a-knocking with seven songs a-rocking. This week, we are astonished to discover that it’s the second half of the year already. Seriously, where on Earth has the time gone? We might as well get the Christmas decorations up now! Happy New Year, everyone!
I digress. We’re looking at some of the best releases of the first week of July, and the songs that have us most excited for them. We strongly suggest you enjoy them while you still have functioning ears. Lord knows, we’ll all be dead before we know it. Ah well, if the Devil has the best tunes, he might well be jamming to a few of these when we end up in Hell. See you in the fiery pit!
Anger Machine – Obstacle Course
First up, we have some thrash/groove metal from the Netherlands that is so hot, they must have cooked it in a Dutch oven. Anger Machine release their second full-length album Human Error independently on July 5th, and Obstacle Course is a face-melting way to introduce it to us. From the opening crescendo drum roll and the fast, thrashy intro, to the slower, stompier crossover-style verses and the melodic classic metal solo from Thijmen den Hartigh that evokes memories of Randy Rhoads, it’s a metal tour de force from the North Holland quartet. If the rest of the album lives up to this track, it’ll be a thoroughly intense, clog-stomping affair, and we can’t wait for it.
Gaupa – Ten of Twelve
Gaupa are a psychedelic doom/stoner metal/rock band from Sweden, who, according to their label Napalm Records, have returned with: “…a slimmed down line-up to serve up some of their heaviest material yet,” on their new EP Fyr, which is available from July 4th. Ten of Twelve, the penultimate track on the new release, is all harmonised lead guitars, ethereal vocals and unconventional time signatures. It sounds to me like their fellow Swedish band Grand Magus covering Tool, with Björk guesting as lead singer. Emma Näslund is like a cross between Kate Bush and Stacia from Hawkwind in the video, with her phantasmagorical dancing and impassioned commitment to the song. I’ve compared her to three of the all-time greats in those last few sentences. I trust the compensation is in the post, Emma. Used notes only, please.
Never Fall – Morfeus
Moving further south in Europe, we head to Czechia for a bit of symphonic metal in the form of Morfeus, the opening track from Eternal, the debut album by Never Fall. It is due to be released independently on Independence Day – Happy 4th of July to our American friends! I love the addition of the 80s hard rock-style piano to the symphonic metal template on a song that is otherwise faithful to that blueprint, with its dramatic synths and ethereal vocals juxtaposed with wrought-iron riffing and pummeling drums. They evoke the Greek God of dreams and this is the stuff thereof. We raise a glass of Staropramen to their future success, and strongly recommend that you check out these Czechs.
Sarastus – Towards Eternity
It means dawning in Finnish, apparently. And it was the dawning of the month on the 1st of July that saw the release of Agony Eternal, the third full-length album from Finnish black metal trio Sarastus. (Yep. Another European band! Sorry to the rest of the world.) It was released via Dominance of Darkness Records, and it’s proper old-school, Satan-bothering black metal, with its blast beats, tremolo picking and screeched vocals – very much the perfect soundtrack for burning a church and murdering a bandmate – not that Metal Lair encourages that kind of behaviour at all. Also, there’s another song on the album called Into The Lair, which we can only assume is a tribute to us. Thanks, guys!
Warkings – Kings of Ragnarök
Now, this is fun! German/Austrian/Swiss – still in Europe! – band Warkings (I keep reading it as wankings, which doesn’t reflect well on me) are here to bring us: “metal from the realms of eternity,” according to their website. They seek to achieve this monumental aim with the release of Armageddonon July 4th via Napalm Records. They perform epic, synth-driven power metal with sumptuous vocal harmonies, all whilst clad in outlandish costumes relating to Norse mythology. Or the Marvel Universe. Whichever you prefer. There’s a melody in this song that reminds me of Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) by Bananarama, but don’t let that put you off. My bestie thinks they sound good but look naff. Then again, someone once approached him in a pub to tell him they loved his fancy dress outfit when he was actually wearing his normal clothes, so I wouldn’t be taking advice on sartorial matters from him, the bellend!
Weald & Woe – Warchild
At last! An entry this week from a band that isn’t European! That said, it’s a fairly European sounding affair, with its distinctly melodic take on black metal from the boys from Boise, Idaho. It’s an approach that basically constitutes applying black metal vocal techniques to a classic metal framework, with its jaunty 6/8 time signature and major key chord progressions. It possibly shouldn’t work but it absolutely does! Weald & Woe release their third full-length album, the fabulously-titled Far From The Light of Heaven, on the 4th of July, not independently for the sake of Independence Day, but via the very Irish-sounding Fiadh Productions. It would be a woeful error of judgement not to seek it out.
Wytch Hazel – Woven
Finally, we return to Europe, and look to Lancaster in the north of England, not for a bomber, nor the ferry to the Isle of Man, but for some old-school sounds courtesy of a band who are notable, amongst other things, for having had a chap by the name of Cornelius Corkery on bass guitar. Every English band should have a member whose name could have come straight from the pages of a Dickens novel. They deserve inclusion for that alone, but they deserve it more for gracing us with a gloriously antiquated bit of hard rock/heavy metal, sans Cornelius, in the form of Woven, from their fifth full-length studio album V: Lamentations, available from July 4th via Bad Omen Records. The sumptuous harmonised guitars in the intro, the jig-time riffing and velvety vocals all harken back to the classic era of English guitar music, And Irish guitar music, as Thin Lizzy and Horslips come to mind upon hearing it just as much as Hawkwind or Jethro Tull. Fantastic, nostalgia-inducing stuff!
