A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Four

Boston natives, I believe, Event were a really cool and very under-appreciated progressive metal band.

The funny thing here is the closed-mindedness of the progressive metal fans having a lot to do with the fact that this band never got any recognition, since to most of this ilk, being a prog band doesn’t involve actually being progressive, but rather, sounding like Dream Theater as much as possible.

I remember seeing them way back in 2001 or 2002 open up for Symphony X at the old L’amour in Brooklyn and they almost got booed off the stage by the meatheads in the crowd, which just goes to show that people at a so-called “progressive” metal show can be just as stupid as the average Slayer ‘tard.

Just like many young dork aspiring musicians in the late 90s, they are all Berklee grads, taking their cues from the mighty Dream Theater, who of course, all met at this prestigious music college.

Their first album was actually very much Dream Theater worship, which is probably how they got the attention of the prog community.

However, this, their second album “Human Condition,” was a step in a much different direction.

The brains behind the band was diminutive guitarist Shaun Michaud, who plays guitar and also does the programming and electronics, which there are a lot of on this album (and the next) and which is what gave the band their very distinctive sound.

Also, opting for a more masculine singing approach, new singer Dave Deluco stepped in on “Human Condition,” who had a more subdued and modern vocal style that didn’t really resemble the high-pitched wails and over-emphasized vibrato that most progressive metal singers had to have, which immediately made him a “grunge” singer to these progressive fans you spent their time on Queensryche message boards arguing over the highest note Geoff Tate ever hit and whether it was falsetto or full voice.

Event had very complex riffs, but they grooved, despite the odd time-signatures, and they stayed mid-tempo and just generally really grooved hard for most of the album. Combine with the electronics and the “grungy” vocals, they must have known that their fan base from the first album would not be appreciating this progression. Which makes it that much cooler that they decided to go in this direction, alienating the small number of fans that they had in this already miniscule micro-genre of metal.

I might also mention that Shaun did not solo often, but when he did, he played some of the most brilliantly crafted solos I have ever heard. I also saw Shaun play guitars and keyboards for Fates Warning on their “Disconnected” tour, so even though Event never took off, I’m glad that he at least got to tour around a bit with a seminal band like Fates Warning, who obviously recognized his talent.

“Human Condition” came out in 2001 on Inside Out Records, and they might still have some in stock, you never know.

In the end, this album is really hard to describe, just check it out, here’s a song from it.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Three

Glory was a Swedish band that played a really cool AOR/melodic hard rock style with lots of progressive metal/ rock tendencies and influences thrown into the mix. The most notable member of the now-defunct band is Göran Edman, the singer who you might know from Yngwie Malmsteen’s hair metal period albums “Eclipse” and “Fire and Ice.”

The man behind the music is Jan Granwick, another virtuoso guitarist from Sweden who has a nice Steve Vai thing going on most of the time and puts together some great melodic rock songs. It makes you wonder how many killer guitarists there are from Sweden that no one knows about (or maybe it doesn’t).

Much like with most singers that have been in Rising Force, you don’t really know what they can actually do vocally or how good they really are until they have left the plump viking shredder’s band and ventured into groups where they had more creative control over what they were singing. They also rhyme “fire” with “higher” and “desire” much less frequently when not playing second fiddle to Malmsteen’s ego.

Edman’s performance is what makes this album. His voice is so crystal clear and effortless, he’s simply a pleasure to listen to every time he grabs a microphone. He really shows his vocal range on “Crisis vs Crisis” and the many different styles he can sing. Edman has a really nice bluesy vibe throughout a lot of this album, especially on “Caught Up in the City,” and then ventures into weirdo almost Peter Gabriel-esque territory on “Itch,” but his vocals probably shine the brightest on the two great ballads “Believe in a Miracle” and “The Battle of the Bridge.”

If you find yourself enamored with Mr. Edman after listening to this album, I’d highly recommend another Swedish band Karmakanic, particularly the debut “Entering the Spectra,” where Edman is once again brilliant.

Karmakanic is a side project of The Flower King’s bassist Jonas Reingold, so it’s a lot more progressive rock oriented than Glory, naturally, but has very catchy and melodic moments as well, though they sometimes get lost in the long, masturbatory instrumental passages that I know you prog nerds love as well.

Anyway, “Crisis vs Crisis” came out in 1996 on Germany’s Dream Circle Records. It’s probably out of print, and even if it’s not you’ll probably have to pay an import price to get your hands on it, but it’s well worth it.

Here’s a track to check out.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Two

Technical death metal has seen a significant rise in popularity over the last few years. However, the truth of the matter is that hardly any of these new bands are even coming close to seeing the masters of the 90′s (Cynic, Pestilence, Atheist) who paved the way for the genre.

Sure Necrophagist, The Faceless, or whoever’s big this week, are impressive, but none of these bands come close to making substantial musical statements like the pioneering bands did. Most of the time these technical death metal bands aren’t even really that technical, they just play really fast. Chances are they will all burn their instruments and go cry in a corner once the new Gorguts album comes out (here’s hoping).

The truth is that there is a really short list of technical death metal albums recorded more recently that I think will be able to stand the test of time like “Focus,” “Spheres” and “Elements” have. Martyr’s “Warp Zone” and “Feeding the Abscess” make that list (and I’m sure I will be posting about this tremendous band soon), and so does Theory in Practice’s “The Armageddon Theories.”

This Swedish band recorded three albums, the first one,”Third Eye Function,” was a little rough and borrowed quite a bit from Meshuggah as I remember it.

“The Armageddon Theories” was their second album, and it is one of the most brilliant and complex death metal albums ever recorded. This is a band that when you say technical, you really mean it. There are some riffs on this album I have listened to a million times and still have no idea what the hell is going on.

So the playing is disgustingly complex, we’ve confirmed that, but the arrangements are also quite brilliant and very varied. Most of these tech death metal bands of today just sound like a train passing by – a train with the conductor playing some sped-up Van Halen tapping phrase on loop, perhaps – but Theory in Practice put together a both incredibly varied and cohesive album here that fails to tire.

They also add spooky and slightly Emperor-esque keyboards here and there to add even more confusion and brilliance to the mix.

The album released after this one, unfortunately, failed to meet my high expectations. On the third album “Colonizing the Sun,” the drummer, who is also the band leader and singer, did just about the stupidest thing he could have done.

He decided to focus on singing and let someone else play drums. This was devastatingly stupid because not only are his screechy vocals about the only part of the band one might call “average,” but more importantly, his drum skills were on some other, other shit, and of course, his replacement behind the kit didn’t measure up at all (not saying he sucked, he just wasn’t nearly as sick as this dude).

The band broke up after that, so obviously, he totally should have listened to me and stuck to playing drums, but whatevs.

Anyway, this album came out in 1999 on the great Listenable Records. Here’s the opening track of awesomeness.

A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part One

Yearning was a band from Finland that played, especially on this album, a very original and progressive style of atmospheric doom metal. To this day, I have yet to hear an album that sounds anything like it.

I’m not too familiar with the rest of their discography, but I remember that “Plaintive Scenes” really stood out as being unique, whereas the record preceding it was a bit more traditional and the ones after drifted into some more gothic and slightly queer musical territories, as I remember.

“Plaintive Scenes,” while maintaining its doomy core, included a lot of progressive elements and fairly virtuosic playing, especially for a doom band. Lush keyboards and orchestration, deep evil growling and manly melodic singing rounded out their sound, which as I stated previously, was pretty one of a kind.

Last I heard, the dude who was the main songwriter offed himself recently, which seems to be a common thing for Finnish people to do at some point or another.

A very cool band, found on a short list of metal bands from Finland that you shouldn’t be embarrassed of liking.

Anyway, this album came out in 1999 on Holy Records and you should check it out, here’s a track to dig on.