Mark’s Review:

I’ve pretty much hated every album that has come out this year.  Well, maybe hate is a strong word, but I’ve either been disappointed or underwhelmed by a vast majority of the metal offerings in 2010.  The new Nachtmystium wasn’t metal enough for me, the Meshuggah DVD was slick but lifeless and Until the Light Takes Us was far from compelling.  At first, I thought of chalking up this new dismissive attitude to old age or becoming a father, but it really seems as though metal music has taken the relatively “safe” route this year as far as boundary-pushing.  Could it be that the new state of the music industry is to blame?  Are acts toning down, or at least sculpting their more progressive ideas in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience and thus take a larger slice of an ever-decreasing revenue pie?  Bands seem to get faster and more technical, but they lack some of the basic songwriting, dynamics and feel that allows listeners to really connect with their music.  This is obvious in any art form, but in the genre of metal, where everybody plays fast and screams loudly, you need SOMETHING to stand out away from the crowd.

Which brings us to Cloudkicker, or the man behind the project, Ben Sharp.  If you read this site, you know that we are big fans of Mr. Sharp’s work and feel that just maybe, his apathy toward traditional distribution streams and touring might be the future.  What I enjoyed the most out of his new album Beacons, is not the technically adroit playing (which is apparent), but the LIFE he has injected into all of these compositions.  Maybe not having the pressure to sell t-shirts at terrible gigs in the middle of nowhere allows him to be a true artist, but you can tell when you listen to the songs that there is real passion in what he writes, and this is something you just can’t fake.  The frantic, yet controlled style of ”Here, wait a minute! Damn it!“ yields to some of the biggest-sounding songs this side of Devin Townsend.  The production, the tones and most importantly, the arrangements are all there and each track grows so organically, you cant help but get sucked in.  I challenge you to listen to the epic ”We’re Goin’ in. We’re Going down“, ”Push it Way Up!“ or ”It’s bad. We’re hit, man we are hit“ and not crank the volume as loud as your speakers or headphones can handle, if you have any emotion at all, it’s impossible.

Nine months in to 2010, and I’ve finally found something to put on my annual “Best-Of” list.  Cloudkicker’s Beacons shows how a fresh and honest approach to music can deliver big results.  It’s technically sound, heavy in it’s confidence and ultimately respectful to the listener.  I can’t wait for the next one.

Mark’s Rating:

King says: “Ben, need a vocalist?  How about a producer?… gardener?”

Justin’s Review:

If you’ve read this site for any length of time, you’ll already know how awesome we think Cloudkicker (read: Ben Sharp) is, and of course… Beacons does not disappoint. In fact… it’s easily Cloudkicker’s most diverse & cohesive effort to date. Without the pressure to meet album deadlines, touring cycles, and genre (read: Djent) requirements, Ben Sharp is free to hone his art to perfection… and at his own pace.

While Cloudkicker’s amazing music and low overhead are basically a metal label’s wet dream (read: TesseracT), Sharp has chosen to operate on his own… without the bullshit. And while I truly appreciate his music… I respect him even more for his perspective. Art for art’s sake.

And in an industry full of special-limited-edition-re-releases, that’s something worth supporting. So quit reading this, and go buy Beacons.

Justin’s Rating:

King says: “Ben Sharp is the Bill Watterson of the music industry”

Have A Listen:

Cloudkicker – Here, wait a minute! Damn it!:

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Editor’s note: It’s not too often that the words “Honeymoon” and “Wacken Open Air” get used in the same sentence. Luckily for us… Ed bagged a good one. Read on friends…

This year’s decision to attend the Wacken Open Air festival came about under some excellent circumstances. My wife and I set our wedding date for August 1st, 2010 about a year ago, but it wasn’t until earlier this Spring that we realized that Wacken was kicking off just four days after our wedding day in northern Germany! Thus, an entire 3-week honeymoon trip of Europe was planned… all beginning with three days at WACKEN! Sound too good to be true? In retrospect, it really was. And I’m not just talking about the music here. The wonderful and hospitable village community, metal vendors, camping, food, beer, and countless conversations with friendly and open-minded extreme music enthusiasts of all ages from around the world really made this one of the greatest experiences of my life.

We were picked up by a bus company on the evening of Wednesday, August 4th in Berlin. Joining us were five Russians who had also flown into Berlin, all in their early-to-mid 20’s. The driver and his girlfriend were German, so some interesting conversation took place over the next few hours mainly dealing with language barriers and metal. When we arrived in Wacken around midnight, the head of the bus company (a scrawny German metalhead who was completely piss drunk) gave us our tickets and then gave us a lot of shit for recently getting married. He kept asking “ARE YOU SURE??? ARE YOU SURE???” and laughed hysterically, all the while still holding on to our tickets. He did this about five times (!). Although the guy was kind of funny, he was acting like a bit of a douche in my opinion, or maybe I was just ready for a beer after four hours in the van. Just as I was about to call him out on being a wanker and to give us our damn tickets already, he finally gave us our tickets.

AND SO WE HAD ARRIVED!

There is no way to accurately describe how large this festival is: 80,000 camping just outside the festival barriers, and add to that a few acres of stage/audience area, others areas for merchandise vendors, supermarkets, food courts and beer gardens inside the festival, and then picture the entire outlying village community also taking part in the festival with local residents happily working very well-priced food kiosks, portable bars, beer gardens (cranking metal), and craft tables stretching about 1-2 miles into the center of the village. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Day #1, Thursday 08/05/2010.

Breakfast and coffee went down well, and it was time for the grand introduction.

Only a few major bands in the evening today: Alice Cooper, Motley Crue, and then Iron Maiden headlining. I bought a couple of shirts as we browsed the hundreds of merch tents earlier in the day. As we went to grab some food and beer around lunch time, two Norwegian kids who were completely shit-faced decided to approach Kate and tell her how pretty she was (and how ugly I was). The whole thing was pretty damn hilarious… one of them even told us he was on his third bottle of Jack. The fact that anything more than two bottles is enough to put a kid like this in the hospital told me he was full of shit, but I went along with it anyway. Hey… it’s a festival!

I refused to take any photos of Motley Crue because frankly, they suck, and big surprise, their performance sucked too. Here’s a nice view of the dual stages AFTER they were finished playing (everyone seemed relieved that Vince Neil and his “Crue” of untalented pricks finally left the stage).

Didn’t see much of Alice Cooper, but his performance appeared to be quite good, with several bloody stage props in full use.

Iron Maiden played the exact same set as they did in Chicago a few weeks earlier (all new material) but the sound was far better and the audience didn’t appear to have the same cockroach up their ass like in Chicago. We didn’t watch the entire set, but it sure as hell sounded pretty damn tight to me… after all, it’s Iron Maiden.

And that was about it for Day #1. We drank some beer, chatted with a couple of highly intelligent German kids and a few blokes from London who were camping next to us, and then went to bed.

Day #2, Friday 08/06/2010

RISE AND SHINE!

Lots of music today! Excitement was starting to brew in my belly after the delicious eggs and coffee we had in the town. Amorphis was playing very early and we had to check them out. I’ve always been a fan of this interesting band from Finland, who have grown steady more melodic in recent years while still retaining a progressive/psychedelic vibe that is all their own. The set spanned from the classic “Tales of the Thousand Lakes” all the way through their new material. Great set.

We had an hour or two to kill next, so we decided to enter a section of the festival known as “Wacken Village”. This is basically Wacken’s answer to Reniassance Fair, with people dressed up in pilgrim and medieval attire and a few magicians doing bizarre stuff using metalhead volunteers as bait. It all seemed pretty harmless, until we noticed this poor bastard.

Possibly one of the best performances of the festival was next: VOIVOD. I saw them back in March in Chicago with Kreator and Nachtmystium (a bit of a drunken night for me) and it was a true honor to catch them again at Wacken with a few more brain cells intact this time around. The tones were immaculate, intensity was top notch. Snake was in full form and the audience was crazy. I will also say their new guitarist Dan Mongrain (Martyr, ex-Gorguts) is absolutely phenomenal and once again more than nailed Piggy’s complex and amazing riffage (RIP Piggy). Voivod killed it.

We caught a little bit of Kamelot, a power metal band with some decent pyro going on (criminal side note: a slothy, pseudo-hippie looking asshole tried to pick-pocket me during this performance, to which I screamed some awful obscenities to both him and his girlfriend in response. They backed off very quickly, and fortunately nothing got physical).

One of the funnier moments of the day was when the singer from Kamelot tried to get some audience participation going on during a Halford-esque breakdown… but suddenly this appeared, completely distracting the audience from singing along with him. Nice try anyway dude.

We then walked around some more and even caught a glimpse of (drum roll please)… A HEAVY METAL MARCHING BAND!

Next up was Tarja Turunen, former vocalist of Finland’s fantasy metal/melodrama-laced celebrity outfit Nightwish. My wife is a huge Nightwish fan, so we decided to check out Tarja’s set. We found it funny that Wacken placed Tarja’s performance at the exact same time as Arch Enemy’s, which we didn’t think was a coincidence at all. Although I was unfamiliar with Tarja’s material, her voice was absolutely stunning and the backing band was tight as hell, especially the drummer who was incredible.

SLAYER. The crowd went completely insane right off the bat. Fans flooded the entrances so rapidly that very loud announcements came on in German saying they had reached full capacity in front of the main stage. We tried to get in the entrance to the main stage anyway but were pushed back out by security. We managed to enter through a side entrance and walked through the back of the crowd toward a smaller stage, where Ihsahn was about to begin playing. Slayer sounded great, but it was difficult to get close to the stage or get a clear view of anything for that matter. Sounded good though!

We got inside a tent that housed the Headbangers Stage, where ex-Emperor frontman Ihsahn was playing. His backing band consisted of all six members of the Norwegian progressive outfit Leprous, who were also amazing in their own right. This was truly a highlight of Wacken: Ihsahn supported by a full backing band with two additional guitarists and three vocalists. All the guitar harmonies and vocal layers absolutely soared with greatness. I am now convinced, both on recordings and in a live setting, that Ihsahn’s solo material completely knocks anything Emperor has ever done out of the sky in just about every musical aspect imaginable.

We were dead tired after Ihsahn since it was after 1am, so off we went back to the tent to rest up for the final day… but not before checking out Anvil for a few minutes. Lips was in the middle of an interesting rant about how he’s not a metalhead, but actually a hippie, and then the band jumped right into “Weed Assassins”. We figured that was a pretty good cue to go to bed.

Day #3, Saturday 08/07/2010.

Not quite as crazy of a band schedule on the final day, although there were a few highlights: Unleashed, Cannibal Corpse, and the mighty IMMORTAL closing out the festival. I started drinking beer around 11am (hey, it was the final day) and spent the first few hours after breakfast walking around the town stopping at various beer gardens in order to try every different kind of German pilsner that I could get my hands on before the rock started. In retrospect, it was a fun but the daytime drunkenness also made me forget to put sunscreen on, which resulted in both physical sunburn pain and emotional torment from fellow festival goers later in the day.

We arrived to the stage area just as Unleashed was setting up on the Black Stage, and as you can see there is no sign of anyone leaving Wacken just yet.

Unleashed kicked my ass. Here is a band whose roots go back to Nihilist, some of the earliest and nastiest 80’s Swedish death metal imaginable – and whose demos became highly influential to scores of extreme players following them. While Unleashed has always been simple and to the point, twenty years of this kind of intensity definitely shined in a great performance. The crowd loved it too.

We had a bit of time to kill, so we went to the Wacken info center and charged our cell phones for a while. We had a very long conversation with an Israeli guy who was very friendly so we started buying him beers, and then a Wacken staff lady came up and put sugar crystals on my tongue (???) to help my sunburn. Huh? We bid our farewell to the Israeli dude and headed back out to the stage area and at this point several Germans and additional Wacken staff gave me a lot more shit for my sunburn as we walked toward the stages. Sorry everyone… I DIDN’T REALIZE IT WAS FUCKING ILLEGAL TO GET SUNBURNED IN GERMANY.

So go ahead and laugh… everyone else did (FYI – I enhanced this photo for self-deprecating purposes). I guess it is pretty damn hilarious looking at it now.

Anyway, Cannibal Corpse was in the middle of a very crazy set. I’ve never been the biggest fan of this death metal machine of a band, but they sounded tight. I also enjoyed the singer’s extremely dry sense of humor in between songs… genius in fact.

As Cannibal was rocking, this was also an entertaining sight and literally came out of nowhere. What do they call this? Tube surfing? (sorry, lame joke)

We then ran into these two idiots walking around behind the crowd as Cannibal finished their set. Performance art, perhaps? Nah… more like wankery.

We had finally made it to the final act of the night… IMMORTAL. By this time my wife was also pretty lit up from the beers (I think she deserved it after dealing with my intoxicated ass all day up until that point)… and so IMMORAL began.

IMMORTAL was one of the most intense sets of the weekend, if not the best of the entire festival. I missed the infamous show with Manowar several years ago that all my friends caught in Aurora (IL) so the anticipation for this was huge. Little did I know that three individuals could create such a monstrous sound, surpassing Slayer and probably every other act on the main stage during the course of the festival.

Then suddenly these guys decided to have a little too much fun… RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. Not sure how IMMORTAL would feel seeing what these fans were up to during their performance. Talk about disrespect!

And so the music was over! Actually, Soulfly was playing dead last, but sorry Max… we had to get to bed. A midnight snack before sleep sounded good.

We woke up the next morning, packed our bags, ditched the tent, grabbed a bagel and coffee, and made it on the bus by 9am.

In summary, this was easily the best festival I have ever attended in my entire life… period. If you like extreme music and great people, do yourself a favor and check out Wacken Open Air sometime before you die. I’m not sure what else to say – check the line-up, be sure to buy your tickets early, and have FUN. We were in Europe for another 2 1/2 weeks after Wacken, and this was a great place to start.

Finally, here’s a quick video that my wife shot of our neighbors in the campground sometime during the last day of the festival, which pretty much sums up the entire experience.

WACKEN!!!!

Mark’s Review:

Maiden’s latest studio effort profiles a disturbing trend which began when Bruce and Adrian Smith rejoined the band in 1999: Long, aimless songs that attempt to be epic, but come off as unnecessarily long-winded.  I attribute this to the band’s endless search for a new, modern Hallowed Be Thy Name (or an epic stadium anthem that features a slow intro, a fast ending and plenty of harmony guitars and choruses to sing along to).  They found the 90’s version with Fear of the Dark, and seeing how it was the only song post-Seventh Son to make the cut for the “retro” Flight 666 tour set list, you can see how much stock they put into it.  Since Brave New World, we’ve heard twenty attempts coming in at over 7 minutes ranging from the successful (Dream of Mirrors) to the dreadfully overrated (Paschendale).  I gave up on A Matter of Life and Death after several listens just because the songs were SO long and also SO boring and while having some moments, Dance of Death was overall as dull as it’s cover art.  The Final Frontier follows this pattern with six of the ten songs at or over the magic 7 minutes in length.  Some of these songs are quality stuff, but with so much added filler, their impact often gets diminished.  Iron Maiden simply feels like they’re trying too hard.

The title track, The Final Frontier, is actually a pretty good song, but after sitting through a 4-minute, droning and COMPLETELY unnecessary “intro” called  Satellite 15, you’re left pretty confused on what just took place, and whether or not this is really worth your time.  The song also follows the predictability of other post-Blaze era album-openers by throwing together a catchy melody and driving beat with a simple, often-repeated chorus (Wildest Dreams, Different World, Wicker Man).  Is this necessarily a bad thing?  Well, no, because those songs are still awesome, but you get the feeling that maybe Maiden is just going through the motions a bit too much by sticking so blatantly to this formula.  The Alchemist and Isle of Avalon are some of the better songs on the album (although Avalon is still too long), and the first single El Dorado is solid despite some lyrics that seems like they were chosen just because they rhymed.  Despite being co-written by Janick, The Talisman is a good track, but after a boring 2-minute intro, you might have already skipped past it.

The Man Who Would Be King and When the Wild Wind Blows are the final two songs, and with a combined time of almost 20 minutes, they provide the long slow death to the album.  The Final Frontier is not a failure, but it suffers from overworked and over-thought songwriting and a maniacal desire to “create” a classic Maiden live staple.  After being beaten over the head with these attempts over the past four albums, it all begins to blend together into mush.  I am certain that some of these songs will kill live, because that’s what Maiden still does best, and I’ve noticed that because of Bruce’s “aging” voice, crowd participation help songs from the new era become a more powerful experience.  Maiden’s definitely not dead, they’re still probably the best metal band of all time, but I doubt I will listening to The Final Frontier very often.

Mark’s Rating:

King says: “11-minute song about Evil?  Bah, been there, done that.”

Matt’s Review:

For a band that has been around for over 30 years, Iron Maiden stays as busy as ever these days.  Not only do they keep an extensive touring schedule and churn out a new studio album every 3-4 years, but it also very evident that they are making valiant attempts to progress their sound into different areas, rather than live off of past glories and – at least consciously – rehash the same albums over and over again.  To an admirable extent, they achieve this with their latest offering, “The Final Frontier.”  However, to another extent, there are some moments of mediocrity and redundancy, which end up overshadowing some of those attempts.  Regardless, the album does have its fair share of redeeming qualities – you just have to dig a little deeper and be a little more patient to discover them…

Much like their last effort, “A Matter of Life and Death,” the songwriting duties have shifted more towards a group effort, with Adrian Smith and (to a lesser extent) Bruce Dickinson picking up much of the slack from Steve Harris.  Also, much like their previous effort, this mostly results in longer, progressive, mid-tempo songs with an epic feel, slower-moving transitions, and an overall approach that is definitely more simplified than in the past.  In other words, you get the feeling that, while the band is letting you know that they have nothing left to prove, they still have plenty of new music left in them and have every intent of continuing to explore their well-defined musical comfort zone.

Now for the album’s highlights:  “El Dorado” is just a well-crafted, no-nonsense metal song that will most definitely be the album’s ‘hit,’ as well as a song in their live repertoire for years to come.  It’s got everything – a catchy verse, bridge, a trademark anthemic chorus, and three guitar solos in the middle.  The ‘fast’ song on the album, “The Alchemist,” has classic Maiden written all over it, even if it does sound a little too similar to “Man On The Edge” at times.  Regardless, it is another well-crafted metal song.  Track 6, “Isle Of Avalon,” is officially the first ‘epic’ on the album, clocking in at just over 9 minutes.  There are some great progressive transitions on this one, very reminiscent of “Out Of The Silent Planet” from the Brave New World album.  Back-to-back tracks “Talisman” and “The Man Who Would Be King” are two more quality epics that offers much of the same ear candy.  Yes, the proggy epics are definitely Maiden’s forte these days… keep it up boys!

As for the album’s low points:  the opening track(s), “Satellite 15… The Final Frontier,” starts out promising with Satellite 15’s dark cyber-metal buildup, but then turns boring and generic after it kicks into the title track.  I don’t really understand what they were trying to do here, but anyways…  The third and fourth tracks, “Mother of Mercy” and “Coming Home,” respectively, are the obvious filler tracks on the album that frankly sound like rejects from the “No Prayer For The Dying” and/or “Fear Of The Dark” albums – personally my two least favorite Maiden albums of all time.

The remaining two tracks yet to be discussed – “Starblind” and “When the Wild Wind Blows” – fall into that mediocre category that I mentioned earlier.  Although both songs are lengthy and have one or two standout parts, particularly during the middle breaks, there are even more unnecessarily drawn out parts that could have easily been trimmed and/or eliminated to make for a much better song.

In summary, if you’re an old-school Maiden fan hoping for another “Number of the Beast” or “Powerslave,” then “The Final Frontier” is definitely not for you.  On the other hand, if you happen to be a fan of “Brave New World” and beyond, then the chances are you’ll enjoy this album as well and it will grow on you over time.  While the technical side of their playing is much simpler these days, the songwriting as a whole has definitely matured.  All in all, it’s another fairly respectable effort from the band that effortlessly rings up $20,000 bar tabs. 

Matt’s Rating:

King says: “Yes, age does bring maturity and grace… nothing a little makeup and hair dye can’t fix!”

Have A Listen:

Iron Maiden – El Dorado:

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