Album of the month: Grayceon - All We Destroy

Grayceon is a very unique band from the USA. And All We Destroy is one of the best albums released so far this year . You probably won't find anything like it anytime soon. The creativity of metal at its best.

A must-listen. Highly recommended. Album of the month.

Album of the month: Evergrey - Glorious Collision

Welcome back, Evergrey, we've missed you. Or at least, I have. Glorious Collision is the new Evergrey release, it came out in February. I'm not gonna say if it's good or bad, it's still to early for that. I might do that some place else, some other day. For now, I'm just commemorating the music of Evergrey and welcoming a new album. Regardless of what is is, Evergrey will still be a dear band to me. I'm very fond of them. They wrote a page on progressive metal history as one of the most creative dark prog metal bands that ever lived. They are going through a restructuring period as well, so one can really ask them the world at this point. Let's just hope they continue to give us new music that is exciting and interesting.

Evergrey, Glorious Collision, album of the month.

Album of the month: Darkwater - Where Stories End

This is exciting. Darkwater have just released their new album "Where Stories End", three years after they released the epic masterpiece "Calling the Earth to Witness". Many people still don't know and have never heard of this band, but after that first album, shame on you! Being the progeek I am, I had to check it out and I was amazed when I listened to that album. My love for Darkwater has grown since then and I become a serious fan. And now I'm celebrating the release of their new album, from this relatively young band who I'm sure will still grow immensely. I hope this album puts them on the map, at least for a lot more people and gives them a little bit more of visibility in the metal scene, which they deserve, a lot more than the attention some really crappy bands get for reasons that have nothing to do with music. I respect this band very much and I'm just happy they have a new baby. Album of the month to listen to starting now.

Cheers Darkwater, I salute you and your new album and I will be a fan regardless of it's quality (I seriously doubt it'll suck). And I'm spreading the word. Let me just tell you this, three years is a long time, let's make sure the next one will be faster, yes? No pressure, as long as it's good.

Album of the month: Long Distance Calling - Avoid the Light

I usually only discover things after they have already happened. It's just the way it is. And I shouldn't fight it really because there's no point, it will continue happening because I can't keep up with everything all at once. The important thing is that I end up discovering these precious things anyway, sooner or later and here it is again. Thanks to a friend of mine, again, I discovered this new band, they are called Long Distance Calling and possibly very little people know them. Some might have heard of them before, either because Katatonia's own Jonas Renkse lent his voice to one of their songs, or more recently because they were opening for Anathema's European Leg on their new album tour. Unfortunately that didn't happen in Portugal, something that saddens me a lot, but that's life, deal with it. Maybe I will see them eventually, in the future. I reckon opening for Anathema was a big step for them, it certainly opened new roads for them in terms of the diversity of the audience that listens to them.

"Avoid the Light", released in 2009, the album I'm suggesting for this month was my first contact with this band and I must say that the first date went really well :) Seriously, I'm a lover of instrumental albums and bands, I'm sure it has something to do with my musically and the fact that I like to listen to the sounds in detail so that I can later play them on my guitar. But the sound as a whole really interests me as well. So, instrumental bands were always appealing, especially if they were good of course. Here is another instrumental (almost, one of the sounds has vocals in it, Jonas' vocals) - but it's predominantly instrumental of course - album that everyone should listen to. I'm not discriminating, even people who never listened to metal or post-rock can enjoy this one, I'm afraid. I tend to find the heavier parts of the album the best but not because they are heavy but because they are clever and genius in terms of riffs. I value the originality of the riffs bands come up with, but of course originality always depends on the people's background and knowledge of other bands. And there are a lot of instrumental bands, but not all of them are worth my time, I'll assure you. Not that I'm high in my high horse and think that I'm this musical genius, far from the truth, but I think at this point, and after listening to so many albums for so many years, I know what I like and what sounds weak for me. And that's just me, I respect other people's opinions and try my best not to judge, I know my limitations. The bass is very predominant in this release which is also another thing I like to listen to, especially in metal albums. I also like long songs and long pieces of music with clever changes that seem to be fluidly created by the songwriters and a natural fit. We also have that in this album as well as enough variety to keep me interested, I can't speak for anybody else. Apart from all of these qualities already, there's beauty. I often speak about beauty in music and how I like it, so I'm probably gonna repeat myself, but who cares, I think this album provides a lot of beautiful musical moments and that's always a plus. It kinda shows a good taste and a very vivid sensibility to music in general, in my interpretation.

What else can I say? I'm curious about their other work, the earlier work and the new work they will be releasing next year. It's certainly a band to take into account when you are speaking of post-rock/metal and instrumental ability to write good songs. And it's not even a genre I'm an expert at, post-rock/metal or as some people call it "avantgarde". I prefer to call it instrumental because that way I'm not limiting the band's sound as much, it is undeniably instrumental, whatever else it may be, it's up to the listener to decide and conjure up. I just listen to the album and I like it a lot. Highly recommended, really.

Album of the month: Vertigo Steps

"love cannot be trusted" - song Synapse, taken from the album Vertigo Steps

It's been a while since I did musical recommendations, well maybe just a month. But I guess I discover new bands every month, so it's natural that at least one of them (out of the million bands out there) will be worth listening to and praising. They are difficult to find, believe me, and most of the new bands I discover are by accident, or maybe what some people would call "fate", this unidentified entity that I doubt exists.

The truth is I discovered Vertigo Steps by mistake. I was looking into the Portuguese bands that were labeled as "prog" not really thinking it'll be any or even if there were, not really thinking they would be really good. I assume this of all new bands I listened to, I assume they won't be very good because most of the bands really aren't. So it's a good place to start. If the band convinces me and proves me wrong, it'll be twice as good. Here we are, a Portuguese band. It's not that our metal scene isn't vigorous but sometimes there comes a pearl that shines more than the others. And this band is promising Vertigo Steps. Their self-titled album "Vertigo Steps" is so good you won't see it coming. Actually, and I've said this before, I think I like Vertigo Steps (the band) so much because they remind me of Green Carnation (now deceased unfortunately) and that nostalgic feeling was enough to make me feel warm inside. But then I was also able to see all the layers their music has. They are truly adventurous as a band, which is something I always regard as a positive sign, and most of all they write beautiful music. I say many times that I like beautiful music, whether it's black metal, death metal or the cleanest prog band. All of them write beautiful music and that's why I like them. I don't hide I fall in love with the melodies of the bands, and that's what music is all about, melody, and metal is melody, that's why I can't accept it being labeled "noise", because clearly it isn't that at all.

Back to Vertigo Steps, this album was released in 2008 and I only found out about it now, this means I was either too distracted and not looking in the right places. And so have most of you, because most people never heard of Vertigo Steps. Well, let me tell you all that you should all listen to this album because it's really a work of very talented people, who are good songwriters, know what they are doing, and they even write amazing lyrics, philosophical, thought-provoking, as it always such be in art, loving and painful. And you can hear a lot of love and pain on this album, but it's done with a good taste that makes me go back to Anathema. And this is really a big compliment, when I compare whatever a band does to Anathema. In this case, I think it's the sensitivity Vertigo Steps show to write really emotional songs as well. Emotional doesn't always have to be equated with frailty as some people seem to think.

Vertigo Steps are set to release their second album at the end of this year, 2010 for those who don't know, and at this point I'm really really excited about it. I defnitely believe that they can take it a little be further and do even better than what they did in Vertigo Steps, which is one of the best albums to ever come out of Portugal in the last few years, and that's saying a lot about a band who released their first album. I believe they will prove to be more than a promise and exceed themselves. If they don't, which is also a possibility, hard to believe though, they can still be very proud of their debut album Vertigo Steps, which is has more value than meets the end and it demands a lot of attention from the listener, a very common occurrence in bands that have a progressive vibe or feel in their music, and Vertigo Steps definitely have that background, of exploring their musical possibilities not really thinking about boundaries, which is, as it were, my personal definition of prog. It's dark, it's rock, it's metal, it's prog, it's acoustic, it's a great combination, everything comes together pretty well, you might even find it surprising but this band is here to stay.

Album of the month: Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

Akercocke hail from England and their music would be considered pretty terrifying for someone who isn't familiar with extreme metal. I, on the other hand, am and know how to recognize a masterpiece when I see one. Again, they are a progressive metal band but they are much more than that, they throw death metal and black metal in there as well. What intrigued me about them was that they seemed to have built a sound of their own, very individual and standing out in the scene. And then I listened to 'Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone' and it was love. This, I think, is one of the best extreme prog albums I ever heard, without a hint of doubt. It's as diverse as any prog masterpiece and everything seems to fit to perfection, revealing a really inspired group of songwriters. Being so diverse in extreme metal is a rare thing, I find, and that's probably what got me addicted to this album and this band. It's pure headbanging violent madness at times, yes, it's heavy metal, but its tasteful and dare I say delicately put together. I've been inclined for the more extreme metal genres lately, which is something I welcome because that's where I started. The lyrics are a slap in the face of religion and since I can relate, it makes perfect sense for me but there's also this underlying questioning of life and what we are told by society to believe in. It's done in a smart way and it elicits an emotional response. Needless to say that in metal so much is about our emotional responses, about what's beneath the surface, under the skin, about what scares us to death deep inside, about our mental demons, about our alter egos, about our pain. Akercocke makes us go there. And it's never easy, is it?

Álbum do Mês: Pain of Salvation - Road Salt One

Acho que não há nada no mundo que eu goste mais para além de livros e música. Acho que isso é bastante claro em relação ao que eu sou. Recentemente, num espaço de alguns meses, a banda sueca Pain of Salvation passou de uma banda que ouvia esporadicamente para uma banda da qual me tornei fã. Para muito contribuiu este "Road Salt One" que me ajudou na reconciliação com alguns álbuns passados da banda. Na verdade, e talvez o destino tenha destas coisas, o que me faltava para realmente gostar desta banda era dar tempo ao seus álbuns, deixá-los entrar-me pela pele e pelo ouvido adentro e ouvi-los. Ouvi-los muitas vezes. Isto aconteceu com todas as bandas das quais sou hoje fã, tive de ouvir os álbuns muitas vezes, e não é só por ser música progressiva, é porque álbuns especiais não são para ouvidos treinados para ouvir. No fundo, eu sou fã de bandas como os Pain of Salvation porque eles não fazem álbuns para o ouvido treinado e mecanizado, fazem arte em forma de música e letras ligadas num só meio expressivo, libertam fantasmas e partilham com quem esteja disposto a ouvir e a sofrer com eles, a reviver os sentimentos que eles nos lançam. Quando temos a coragem de os agarrar, como é o caso, posso não ser corajosa em muitas outras coisas, mas no que diz respeito à música, eu dou o peito às balas inocentemente, sempre procurando aquele sentimento primitivo. Na nossa vida há coisas que nos mudam, há coisas que respeitamos por serem belas, há coisas que respeitamos porque nos tornam melhores, há coisas que respeitamos porque ajudam a fechar a ferida. Sim, é verdade que álbuns como "Entropia", "The Perfect Element, Part I" e agora o "Road Salt One" colocam o dedo na ferida, abrindo e remexendo lá dentro, mas tão contraditoriamente ajudam na catarse pela intensidade sentimental que revelam. Sou muito sensível a este tipo de bandas e álbuns. E é por isso que decidi destacar mais uma banda, que acaba por ser não mais uma, mas uma banda que se destaca das outras, principalmente pela verdade que emana da sua vasta discografia. E a verdade é sempre desvalorizada quando se fala de música, na minha opinião, raramente desvalorizada. Oiçam o álbum e depois quero ver quem tem a coragem de me dizer que a verdade não interessa. "Road Salt One", um dos melhores álbuns do ano e nem sequer estamos a falar de metal. E nem esse tipo de conversa faz sentido porque os Pain of Salvation sempre foram mais do que uma banda de metal progressivo, sempre foram mais do que um estado musical fixo. E vão sê-lo sempre, com ou sem o reconhecimento daqueles que ainda têm coragem de ouvir música.

Ah, e vou fazer essa coisa impensável que é comprar o CD original. Eu sei que quando digo isto as pessoas começam a julgar-me e vêem em mim uma pessoa louca e desactualizada. Mas para mim, o melhor do presente não é um mp3 e um iPod e um Blackberry que podem levar 10 mil músicas que roubamos na net. O melhor é mesmo ainda haver bandas que lançem um disco físico, que possa ser comprado nas lojas, que tenha um booklet e artwork e as letras que a banda escreveu, e quem compôs as músicas e quem tirou as fotografias para o booklet, e o símbolo da banda no CD e o alinhamento de canções na parte de trás do CD, e os agradecimentos da banda à família e aos fãs que ainda compram o CD.

Road Salt One, song "She Likes to Hide":

Cause I am where I like to hide

I am where I like to hide

Álbum do mês: We Are The Void

The newest addition to my CD collection is Dark Tranquillity's "We Are The Void". The most consistent and interesting band in the melodic genre to me is back. Regardless of what people say about them, and their misconceptions about the "gothemburg sound", Dark Tranquillity is a band that lives beyond that, and was always an original force in the metal scene since the 90s. They were never a cliché, they pushed the boundaries of what their sound could be and were always very deep in their lyrics, exploring much more than the surface of things. 20 years later, they release this album and it's a celebration for me and all fans alike. The best thing that could have happened to me this year was to have them play in Lisbon later this year, in October. It'll be the first time I'm gona have the pleasure of seeing them live, after so many years as a fan. Pretty sure I'm gona cry, as it always is when I first see a band live that has touched me and changed me so thoroughly. Let the celebrations begin...

And don't you feel like a void sometimes?

Álbum do mês: destaque

In Mourning - Monolith