Showing posts with label Rivers Of Nihil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rivers Of Nihil. Show all posts

Another @#$&! 2015 Top 10 rock albums list: Part 2

The best five metal and hard-rock records of the year
By Peter Lindblad

Sevendust brought forth 'Kill The Flaw'
in 2015
While death and the mortality of rock legends have dominated headlines in recent weeks, stories of musical resurrection and redemption made 2015 a year of renewal and inspiring artistry, with a number of fantastic records seeing the light of day. Such tales were sorely needed.

Most notably, Sol Invictus marked the glorious return of Faith No More, proving that even after lying dormant for 11 years, the intensely creative spark within them still burned as bright as ever.

And then there was Baroness, still reeling from a horrible tour bus accident that caused the departure of half the band and forced John Baizely to go through excruciating rehabilitation. In spite of their troubles, Baroness marched on, releasing in December one of the year's most life-affirming records with Purple. For consistency and continued brilliance, there's Clutch, whose album Psychic Warfare provided more evidence of their greatness, and Motor Sister's Ride showed that all Mother Superior's Jim Wilson needed was a little help from friends like Anthrax's Scott Ian, his wife Pearl and Joey Vera, of Fates Warning and Armored Saint, to churn out great '70s-inspired rock 'n' roll.

Ross the Boss and Death Dealer screamed, "Death to false metal" with their rugged, all-encompassing brand of power metal on Hallowed Ground. Lucifer conjured up beautifully evil sonic witchcraft. Fear Factory crafted another epic sci-fi concept record with Genexus. Rivers Of Nihil conceived a nightmarish dystopian scenario in Monarchy, and TesseracT somehow performed some kind of weird alchemy to convert complex prog-metal into something melodic and tuneful on Polaris. In the end, however, none of those records made the final cut, failing to beat out others like Sevendust's dense and darkly soulful Kill The Flaw. Here's a look at our top five albums in metal and hard rock for this past year:

Baroness - Purple
5. Baroness – Purple: Arriving late to the party, Purple was an emotional volcano, erupting and overflowing with anguish, confusion, joy and a determination to not let the harsh reality of their circumstances derail the mighty Baroness. A binge-and-purge record that celebrates and appreciates life and all its confounding highs and lows, Purple made a statement, a declaration of independence from what happened in the past with arms spread wide to embrace the future. Its rough-textured riffs seemingly chiseled out of granite, Purple is not smooth or stylish, but it is powerful, exciting, heavy and raw, with full-bodied choruses of voices bloodied and beaten, but unbowed. It slams into ears like a giant runaway freight train. The feel-good story of the year.

Sevendust - Kill The Flaw
4. Sevendust – Kill The Flaw: Luxurious melodies pulled along by strong, thick currents of heavy guitar riffs combine to make Kill The Flaw nearly flawless, as do the rich, full-bodied vocals of Lajon Witherspoon and Morgan Rose's accomplished drumming. Never once have they lost that sense of who they are, and yet Kill The Flaw finds Sevendust still growing and maturing as artists, expanding their signature sound without compromising their integrity. Commercially speaking, the '90s were nirvana for Sevendust, but in the here and now, they're as polished and potent as they've ever been.

Clutch - Psychic Warfare
3. Clutch – Psychic Warfare: Earth Rocker was a tight, efficient machine running on organic grooves, grabbing hooks and killer riffs. On Psychic Warfare, all those elements can still be found, along with Neil Fallon's oddball humor and infectious storytelling, his forceful, rousing delivery begging for a rapt audience of miscreants. What also emerges is a tougher, more tumultuous sound that doesn't mind digging around in the muddy blues of ZZ Top. There is plenty of dirt on Clutch's boots and flannel shirts here, but when the time comes to regale us with noir-like tales from the trailer court, mystery and menace lurks in the shadows.

Motor Sister - Ride
2. Motor Sister – Ride: Explosive proto-punk mingles with rugged, rough-and-tumble '70s American hard rock and shaggy, blues-infused soul on Ride, the earthy, tuneful album that shined a light on '90s underdogs Mother Superior and its talented leader Jim Wilson. The genuine article in a period of pop insincerity, artificiality and insipidness, Ride is hungry for riffs and has real blood running through its arteries of compelling, gripping melody. It has swagger, energy and sex appeal – everything good, meat-and-potatoes rock 'n' roll music should have, although Motor Sister manages to elevate it to something more inspired and pure. It is altogether human, and it knows what it likes, and you want to hang out with it for hours on end in a dimly lit tavern before taking it someplace more exciting and dangerous, because it's not a stick in the mud and it wants a little adventure before the night ends. This Ride should never end.

1. Faith No More – Sol Invictus: Sol Invictus really is the album of the year, unlike the 1997 Faith No More LP that sarcastically proclaimed itself to be just that and failed to deliver on such promises. Furiously propulsive, deeply soulful, and incredibly diverse and playful, Sol Invictus isn't Angel Dust and it isn't The Real Thing, but it's something in between – a uniquely eclectic entry in the Faith No More catalog that remains interesting and intoxicating right up until its last breath. The sonic architecture of Sol Invictus is designed to amaze, and it leaves lasting memories of melodic grandeur, schizophrenic vocal treatments, swirling keyboards, rhythms constantly pushing and pulling back, and guitar riff conflagrations. Translated from Latin, the title of the album supposedly means "Unconquered Sun." That's as apt a description of this record as any ever written.


The summer of Rivers Of Nihil's 'Monarchy'

Progressive death-metal unit unleashes sprawling concept album
By Peter Lindblad

Rivers Of Nihil released the album
'Monarchy' in August
Never mind what the calendar says. To Rivers Of Nihil, it is a scorching-hot summer in the desolate desert of Monarchy, where the earth is a giant wasteland and its new inhabitants, ruled by oppressive religious zealots, think of the Sun as their God.

The planet is in peril on the latest post-apocalyptic concept album from ascending progressive death-metal provocateurs, and only a wise old earthly force can save them from themselves. In Rivers Of Nihil's seasonal cycle, which began with spring and 2013's The Conscious Seed of Light, the dog days of existence are here, as bassist Adam Biggs, guitarist Brody Uttley and vocalist Jon Dieffenbach are joined by new members Jon Topore (guitar) and Alan Balamut (drums) on a dystopian journey through flowing scenes of brutal sonic devastation and beautifully developed, expansive post-rock atmospherics inspired by Explosions In The Sky or Sigur Ros.

Signing with Metal Blade Records and sharing stages with the likes of Obituary, Whitechapel and Dying Fetus has only served to enhance the profile of Rivers of Nihil, who formed in 2009 and have been focused on building off the promise of their first EP Hierarchy since its release.

On Monarchy, Rivers Of Nihil break new ground, releasing giant storms of emotional tumult through ever-evolving dynamics, alternating scenes of darkness and light, and monstrously heavy, seething riffs that stand there huffing and puffing while gazing upward at heavenly skies of gorgeous sound astronomy.

Biggs recently took time out to answer some e-mail questions about the making of Monarchy and what influenced this mammoth project, which ought to garner some "Album of the Year" consideration. 

Explain how the lyrical concept for Monarchy was conceived and what role the seasons have played on your records.
Adam Biggs: The specific concept for Monarchy pretty much came as a result of simply thinking about topics that bother me about our modern society and sort of extrapolating it to its source if you will. I was thinking a lot about the issue of LGBT rights in general and the grip that the "fundamentals" of our society has over a person's individual rights. What really governs someone's right to love? Or to be who and what you are without fear of judgement? It comes down to this convoluted idea of right and wrong brought about by centuries of religious brain-washing. So Monarchy deals with a race of new intelligent life forms on a distant future earth after it has been transformed into a desert wasteland by a massive solar flare, and their struggles with these similar issues. The desert setting, and the "oppressive heat" of this religious empire's stranglehold on the masses really sets the tone as the summer album in the seasonal concept. The whole idea behind the seasonal bridges between the four albums is to illustrate in the most relatable terms, the inevitability of death, and idea of rebirth within an ever-changing landscape. It's a huge thing to connect four records, but hopefully by the end it will all come together, and the larger picture will be more apparent.

Rivers Of Nihil - Monarchy 2015
Did this turn out to be a more emotional record for Rivers Of Nihil, and if so, why? Did the sequencing of the album play a role in bringing out those elements?
AB: I think it definitely is a more emotional record. You can tell just by listening to it. There's a whole lot of different feelings mixed in with the more stoic brutality that we tend to bring to the table. I think the main reason we decided to inject more feeling into this record is because the last one just felt so straightforward brutal, which is great, but it's not all we have going for us really, so we decided we should dig a little deeper this time around and show the more emotional side of our musical range. The order of the tracks takes on a sort of progression towards this idea, with the album starting off a lot darker and heavier before giving way to the more progressive leanings on the album. It's intended to give this feeling of relief, a sort of break from the anger of the first half or so. 

What was different about making this record, as opposed to previous efforts? Did you feel you had more freedom this time around to do what you wanted to do?
AB: Absolutely. We decided to take a fairly large chunk of the production duties on ourselves this time, utilizing our guitarist Brody's burgeoning engineering skills to track all of the guitar and bass performances in his home studio before importing to nearby Atrium Audio in Lancaster, Pa., where the rest of the album was tracked, edited and mixed. This method allowed us the freedom and time to make the guitar parts as layered and intricate as we wanted without the threat of going over budget or skipping over something for time's sake. This sort of control we had this time I feel really opened up the floodgates as far as what we felt we were capable of pulling off as a band; whereas before there was always a question of whether or not it'll work, now we can listen to it right away and get a feel for what we're doing ahead of time.

Talk about the influence of post-rock music on this album. Was it simply a matter of wanting to make an album that was more atmospheric, or did those elements work especially well with the tale you wanted to tell?
AB: Again it was another means of bringing our more emotion within the music. It's an element we'd experimented with in the past, but never brought to the forefront like on Monarchy. Yes there was also a desire to make the record more atmospheric, but at the same time it's more about just making everything denser; it's almost like having an orchestra backing in the band in a way that is really cool. The amount of moods that it can create is pretty impressive. 

In what ways is this record more experimental than the others? What sorts of things did you try with Monarchy that you hadn't attempted before? Were there some that didn't make the record because they simply didn't fit or seemed to be too "out there"?
AB: Pretty much everything that was written made it onto the record in some form or another which is kind of odd, I know. We've been a band for a lot longer than some people realize, and Brody and I have a pretty good understanding of what works for Rivers of Nihil material and what doesn't. So while we were writing the record we really stretched those ideas; rarely did we truly break away from the sorts of things we know we like to hear. It was all really a matter of sort of amending the definition of what this band is a little bit without betraying the whole meaning. 

Rivers Of Nihil are Jon Torpore,
Alan Balamut, Brody Uttley,
Adam Biggs and Jake Dieffenbach
How did the talents of the two new members, guitarist Jon Topore and drummer Alan Balamut, impact the recording of Monarchy? What kind of musicians are they?
AB: Jon's impact on the record is somewhat minimal because he joined the band pretty late in the writing process. However, he did co write the song "Reign of Dreams" with Brody, which turned out to be one of my favorites on the album. Jon is really solid as a player; he's a goofy dude, but when it comes down to putting on a tight show he's all business, and his talent for guitar mimicry is pretty impressive and makes for a really solid addition to the guitar duo of this band. Alan on the other hand contributed quite a bit. All of the drum parts are totally translated through his super busy, entertaining style of drumming. Alan really wanted to shred on this record, and that he did. At one point during tracking he even joked that he was doing too much and should probably make his drum parts easier next time, but I doubt he will. It's just not in him to take a break behind the kit.

Was there a moment during the making of Monarchy when it seemed like everything was coming together just the way you wanted it to? Conversely, what frustrations did you encounter along the way?
AB: It's actually pretty crazy because I don't think there was any point during production that I thought the record wasn't coming along the way we wanted. It really was a super smooth process, each next thing we did just kept adding to the overall feel and we just kept getting closer and closer with very few stumbling blocks. But if I had to choose one moment where I was like, "Yeah, this is what this is supposed to be," I'd have to say it was during mixing. Having all the finished parts where we wanted them and just adjusting the fine details of the whole thing really made it feel like reality at that point. It's like putting the last coat of paint on a model car or something.

There has been talk about how lush and layered the record is. Talk about the process that went into producing those sounds.
AB: It was honestly just a ton of Brody's guitar wizardry layered with a generous heap of delay and reverb among other effects. Like I said earlier, this was one of the big reasons that recording the guitars in our own home studio was the right option. There's just so much there and so many different tracks and tones that it would've been a nightmare trying to track them all in a pro studio when the clock is ticking and the money is flying out the window. He took a lot of pride in composing and arranging those tracks, so it's something I encourage anyone who listens to the record to take an extra careful listen to all the ambient textures. A lot of it is really cool.

Let me get your take on a few of the songs off Monarchy, beginning with "Ancestral, I" ...
AB: This one was actually pretty divisive. When Brody first sent the demo for this song I wasn't entirely sold on it, and I'm not sure if he was either. We went back and forth on it a lot; at one point we even considered leaving it off the album altogether. This one easily went through the most changes, going from the demo stage to what you hear on the record. Everything from the overall tempo to the solo structure to bass lines and drum beats were tweaked, scratched and re-written. It turned out to be well worth the effort in the end, because everyone in the band really enjoys that song and we plan on including it in the live set in the future. The lyrics ended up dealing with the death and burial of an over-zealous religious figure within the monarchy who is reflecting on the impact his life and influence had and will continue to have on generations to come. 

"Reign of Dreams" 
AB: Again, this is the one that Jon and Brody wrote together. It's a brutal, chaotic experience right from the get-go and it kind of gradually gathers itself into a more easy-to-digest sound, culminating in one of the biggest sounding choruses on the record. It was also one of the most difficult songs on the record to learn and perform. It could just be that the pace of the song is pretty nonstop, or that I'm just not used to adapting Jon's riffing style to the bass guitar just yet, but I had a hell of a time with this one – still lots of fun to learn and play though. The lyrics are about the sort of freedom that this new society enjoyed prior to the advent of the sun-worshipping religion and the Monarchy itself. It was free-flowing and dangerous, but they were very much in control of their own minds. The lyrics themselves have a good deal of "stream of consciousness"-type phrasings to reflect a truly free society.

"Terrestrai II Thrive" 
AB: Believe it or not this was actually the first full song written for the record and it's a heavy contender with "Ancestral, I" for the title of "most messed with song on Monarchy," in that it was pretty much a different song until Brody decided to turn the song into an instrumental, and was titled "Terrestria II." This is definitely the biggest leap sonically that this band has ever taken; it's head and shoulders above anything else we've done as far as a more progressive sound is concerned. I'm personally really excited to bring this one to the stage sometime, but it's hard to say when we could possibly make that happen.

"Perpetual Growth Machine" ...
AB: This is another one that got worked over pretty good (you're reminding me just how much rewriting we actually DID do). It started as a few throwaway riffs that Brody cobbled together to test tones on an amp configuration in his studio. When I heard it I said to him, "That's how the next record starts." And that's really how it happened. He sat on amp test version of this song for a while until fleshing it out more, and then there were some further edits we did. As it turns out this has quickly become a pretty popular song for us, which is strange because I never really saw "single potential" in it because the song doesn't really have a chorus, but hey it works! The lyrics, naturally, are about the birth of the new species of life on earth as the crawl from cracks of the world's dry ocean beds. It's meant to portray the persistence of life, and the inevitability that life can continue through just about anything.

Vocally, what's different about "Monarchy"?
AB: The easiest thing to notice about the vocals in this track is how few of them there are compared to a lot of our other songs. At the beginning of the writing process for this record, Jake and I agreed that we'd made the vocal lines way too busy in our previous releases and we wanted to draw it back on this record and focus on hooks, and more slogan-esque type passages that get stuck in the listener's head, while also giving the music and the riffs more space to breathe. And Monarchy is a pitch-perfect example of us doing just that. 

Now that the process of making the record is over, what stands out the most about it to you? And in what ways does it reflect where Rivers of Nihil is right now and where it's going?
AB: I think the thing that stands out the most for me is that I can still listen to it and not get grossed out in a way hearing my own band like I usually do. It still feels like it's fun to listen to, which I hope is something that translates to fans as well. As far as how it reflects us? It really doesn't because this IS us right now. When you see us live you're going to see mostly new material because of how proud we are of it. Hopefully when it's time to wind down on touring for Monarchy and start writing the next album we can continue the trend set by this record and just not put limitations on ourselves, and just do what we think sounds cool, because that's ultimately how good music is made.

Short Cuts: Rivers Of Nihil, Battlecross, Cattle Decapitation

CD Review: Rivers Of Nihil – Monarchy
Metal Blade Records
All Access Rating: A

Rivers Of Nihil - Monarchy 2015
Adopting a terrifying god complex, Jeff Dieffenbach loudly roars the declaration, "I am the sun/I am the moon," his bellowing rage cutting through the dizzying maelstrom of complex riffs, blast beats and melodic grandeur that is "Sand Baptism." Here's where the world of Monarchy, the sprawling, ambitious new concept album from progressive death-metal architects Rivers Of Nihil, begins to turn. Religious tyranny is established amidst beautifully orchestrated sonic chaos. The new inhabitants of a desert-like earth, stewards of a planet barely worth saving, are divided into classes and their mutual destruction seems assured. Monarchy is Rivers Of Nihil's 2112, an epic dystopian tale brutally told that spills out in great sonic floods, exploring labyrinths of dark, astral melody as sonic devastation of biblical proportions occurs below in the furious grooves and violent intensity of "Ancestral, I" and the surging, explosive dynamics of "Perpetual Growth Machine" and "Reign of Dreams." What stunning, chimerical crescendos emerge from the post-rock tumult of "Circles In The Sky" and the instrumental ebbs and flows of "Terrestria II Thrive," and just when it seems Rivers Of Nihil couldn't possibly outdo themselves, the heavens open in the cinematic, ever-evolving closer "Suntold" and you're left speechless by its blinding brilliance. God save this Monarchy.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Battlecross – Rise To Power
Metal Blade Records
All Access Rating: A-


Battlecross - Rise To Power 2015
Taking no prisoners in their Rise To Power, thrash-metal's greatest hope for a glorious rebirth returns leaner and hungrier than ever. Going back to work, lunch bucket in hand, these angry boilermakers with their blue-collar ethos – coming off 2013's impossibly fast and furious War of Wills – have sharpened their visceral attack, growing ever more aggressive and vicious in doing so. From the one-two punch of a stampeding "Scars" on through "The Path," with its unpredictable mix of soaring, melodic twin-guitar leads, rampaging riffs and Van Halen-like swing, Battlecross lands a flurry of knockout punches on Rise To Power. Sounding more ferocious and tighter than on previous outings, there is ruthless efficiency and superhuman dexterity in their playing. Taking a page out of Pantera's playbook, these Michigan-based malcontents carve red-hot, irresistible grooves into "Not Your Slave," "The Climb," "Bound By Fear," "Despised" and "Blood and Lies," and for all the whiplash dynamics they employ here, these writhing, crashing tracks should come with a cervical collar. Classic thrash elements are thrown into a blender by Battlecross on Rise To Power with thermonuclear guitar solos and different vocal textures that growl and lash out like rattlesnakes, and what comes out is a fresh, combustible racket intent on leading a thrash revival.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction
Metal Blade Records
All Access Rating: A

Cattle Decapitation - The
Anthropocene Extinction 2015. 
Subtlety is not Cattle Decapitation's strong suit. Take the gruesome cover art of its latest extreme-metal manifesto, The Anthropocene Extinction, for instance, depicting ecological catastrophe so severe that earth has become a lifeless wasteland strewn with mangled corpses. And the title of this apocalyptic horror show suggests the planet itself is already in its death throes, choking on the polluting behavior of humanity. If that is, indeed, the case, Cattle Decapitation is going out with guns blazing, these angry giants constructing colossal sonic thrill rides to oblivion and delivering fiery, tempestuous sermons of judgement and recrimination tossed about by massive, pummeling riffs, crazed drumming and a variety of seething vocal textures that spit venom and hoary rage in exciting, sensory overloads "Mutual Assured Destruction," "Not Suitable For Life," and "Apex Blasphemy." The sheer brutality, calculated aggression and chaotic math of "Manufactured Extinct" are awesome to behold, as is the all-consuming closer "Pacific Grim" – its menacing, heavy chugs, widescreen guitars and machine-gun rhythms creating an overwhelmingly intense aural experience that is not for the faint of heart. And such is also the case for "The Prophets of Loss," where one Philip Anselmo lends a hand with vocals, and "Plagueborne," with its neck-breaking tempo changes, as the breathtaking violence and enormity of The Anthropocene Extinction leaves one dazed and disoriented, with the unexpected shifts of "Clandestine Ways (Krokodil Rot)" and the blazing solar storm that is "Circo Inhumanitas" sucking all the air out of your lungs. What's truly chilling, however, is the funereal acoustic dirge "Ave Exitium," as hopeless and forlorn a eulogy as you're likely to ever hear. There are about a thousand different maneuvers taking place within the stretched boundaries of every track, and each one will send jaws plummeting to the floor, and the crazy thing is, for all the surprises they spring, they all make perfect sense. Even a few compelling strains of melody can be gleaned from the madness. A nominee for album of the year, without question.
– Peter Lindblad