Freak Kitchen

Freak Kitchen is a heavy metal/hard rock band from Sweden, they fired up in the early Nineties and kept the same line up until 2000 when the rhythm section was replaced.  Their music is melodic, rich, harmonically complex and full of interesting approaches to time.

Lyrically they mine the usual targets – capitalist society, conformity, racism and the attitude of huge record companies.

Freak Kitchen’s style of music is influenced by many genres besides the traditional heavy metal, ranging from jazz to pop. The band described their third album as “A corny little heavy-pop-rock-Latin-world-jazz-avant-garde-metal-blues-record”.

Now before you press play on “Chest Pain Waltz” over at www.myspace.com/freakkitchenmusic I suppose I should give you a language warning, I would suggest the headphones on for this one if you are listening at work. I truly love the guitar work on this track, there are bits of Zappa and the solo wouldn’t be to out of place on fusion jazz album.  The rhythm section just stand up and drive this song. But the really spiffy bit is that you can hear every word (and don’t forget this  Swedish band) and understand what the song. The production reminds me of the kind of attention to detail that you find on a Stelly Dan album.

Freak Kitchen – Hatefull Little People (Live)

There is a lot of interesting material available from these guys. Dont miss it becasue of the “metal” label. They are having a ball.

Highly Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/freakkitchenmusic and  www.freakkitchen.com/

Andy James

Have you ever woken up one morning and thought to yourself “Enough of the pop thing already, find something louad, really really loud”? I’m calling it Thursday. And did I find the perfect player… Andy James is an awesomely talented guitarist from the U.K. He is also the best guitarist you have never heard of, he’s virtually unknown.

Unsuprisingly he started playing as a kid and got into playing Guns n Roses, Extreme, Queen, Van Halen and Joe Satriani. He got better, trust me.

“In The Wake Of Chaos” is the title track from his album of the same name. This is serious shredding folks, full on, heavy-duty and an intensity level that starts at 11.

Andy said in an interview…

My guitars for this were a John Petrucci 7 string Musicman and a Musicman Axis for rhythm. A Line 6 Pod for rhythm, a Boss BR1600 digital recorder, BFD for the drums and a Roland Cube 30 for all the lead tones. That’s it!. The Roland Cube was in a small cupboard surrounded by 2 pillows and a duvet mic’d with an SM57 cranked to about half volume.

What makes him stick in my ears as opposed to a lot of the other guitar heroes in training out there is his strong sense of melody. He writes music that displays his technical abilities but never lets it just turn into excess riffage, the melody seems to always be at the front.

He is also gigging with “Kaos 7 ” who I am looking forward to hearing

Recommended

www.myspace.com/andyjamesf1

Magician

Woo hoo – another metal band. Yes, yes, I know I was supposed to grow out of the metal band thing years and years ago.

Sorry. Not gonna happen. Ever since I found Dragonforce last year , I have been keeping an eye out for interesting metal acts. Truth be told, Jools spotted them first and sent them along for me to have a look at. (Thanks Jools)

Magician definitely fit the bill, a great mix of power metal and “Dream Theatre” prog-rock. the usual ferociously fast guitar harmonies and YES you can understand the vocals, and what a fabulous rock voice. There is an understanding of the role of dynamics to this bands work, there is light and shade in this bands music. It isn’t all full on and just plain exhausting.

Their 2006 album, “Tales of the Magician” is a conceptual work, telling the journey of Zhaldor, a mage seeking to free his homeland Zelgian from the underworld terror.

Sadly there are only two tracks over at the MySpace site for us to listen to (happily they are both brilliant). Here is the video for “Minstrels Dream”…

The band fired up in 2000 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when Cristiano Schmitt (guitar), Elizandro Max (bass) and Zé Bocchi (drums) joined Dan Rubin (Vocals) and Renato Osorio (guitar) and this is the same line-up that survives today.

Killer riffs, great vocals, truly excellent solos. What more do you need really? Highly Recommended (turn it up- loud)
Websites at www.myspace.com/magicianband and eventually www.magician.com.br/

Time for another rock band, a loud, passionate, loud, guitarcentric, loud rock band. Gotta love it. The odd three part harmony is just icing on the cake. Now this is where you head to “Slaves To Gravity” website at www.myspace.com/slavestogravityofficial and press play on “Mr Regulator”.

This is state of the art hard rock, tight and melodic guitar work with a lovely edge to it (check out the truly heoric hook that they are passing off as a chorus), the lead break is a gem. “Mr Regulator” is a great little hard rock song and  “Slaves To Gravity” are well on the way to an individual sound.

Here is a the YouTube video of Slaves to Gravity “Mr. Regulator”

Check out the other songs over at the website and see what you think. It works for me.

Highly recommended.

Websites at www.myspace.com/slavestogravityofficial and www.slavestogravity.com/

Oh dear, time for another Metal band, now don’t panic… they’re a good one. Bullet For My Valentine are from Wales over in the UK. They originally fired up playing  Metallica and Nirvana covers back in the late Nineties. The usual  rock band stuff follows, struggle for gigs, argue a lot, revolving door bass players and finally break-up.

But this is where it gets interesting, they get back together and find a new bassist, change their name from “Jeff Killed John” first to “Opportunity in Chicago”, then finally to “Bullet for My Valentine”. And then just to round it all off sign a deal with Sony Records via Visible Noise in October 2004.

It’s the rock and roll dream. Ten years to become an overnight success.

So what makes them stand out off the crowd? Well they lack the sheer “force of nature” drive that “Dragonforce” has but the lack of intensity is kind of refreshing. They give your brain a chance to absorb what the music is about. Have a listen to “Tears Don’t Fall” and you will see what I mean. Then check out the wonderfully incorrect “Scream, Aim, Fire“. This is so wrong but I can see it almost verging on parody (this would be me rather than anything intentional on the band’s part), I’m sure it’s the “Over the Top” line in the chorus. Some tasty guitar work though.

I like them, I have had them playing on the MP3 player alternating with Dragonforce and Linkin Park. They stack up pretty damn nicely.

Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/bulletformyvalentine and bulletformyvalentine1.com

DragonForce’s music is just full of yummy, fast (blindingly fast), twin-guitar harmonies, songs that leave you feeling pretty up (as opposed to some of the weirder Northern European death metal dudes) and lyrically they feature some truly epic themes. Oh yeah apart from being able to understand more than two words in a song, they throw in layers of vocals (just in case you missed the “epic” bit, over at their MySpace site there is a track called “Heroes of Our Time” that will give you the idea) where was I? Oh yeah there is a keyboard or two and one of the best rhythm sections I have heard for a while. The bass and drums just pin down the bottom of this band so that every body else can run around like lunatics and not look stupid.

Although the band takes their musicianship seriously, they do not embody the themes in their music. In an interview with Metal Hammer, guitarist Herman Li has stated “Oh no, it’s completely serious, we have fun doing it…”. DragonForce’s influences are drawn from various kinds of metal such as melodic styles of rock, and in particular video games such as “Wonder Boy in Monster World”, and the Final Fantasy series, with lyrics comparable to themes present in fantasy games.

I think they have nailed the genre perfectly, “extreme power metal” describes it exactly. Here is the video for “Through the Fire and Flames”…

Exhausted? Sort of explains the “extreme power metal” tag. These guys have been on my MP3 player for a while now and they always brighten up the day. I love the crafting of the twin lead bits, Herman and Sam fit together like a glove.

Here’s the good news for those of us in Australia. They’re touring…
Wed 22nd Oct – Perth – Metropolis Fremantle
Fri 24th Oct – Adelaide – HQ
Sat 25th Oct – Melbourne – Forum Theatre
Mon 27th Oct – Brisbane, Tivoli Theatre
Tue 28th Oct – Sydney – The Metro

Extremely Highly Recommended.

Websites at www.myspace.com/dragonforce and www.dragonforce.com/

To help her along here is Unleashed, lets have a little bit from their Biography on the Unleashed Official Website

“Hammer Battalion” takes a battle-hardened axe to the misguided concepts of self-subjugation, transparent corruption and unneeded suffering in the name of religious figureheads and provides a perfect link between the ancient struggles of their Nordic forefathers and the ills of our modern society. The blistering “The Greatest Of All Lies” and “Long Before Winter’s Call” take on old religious myths re-cast as pure fact, while “Your Children Will Burn” serves as a warning of the consequences of blind faith. “Whatever is done in the name of different religions is often done against Mother Nature,” notes vocalist/bassist Johnny Hedlund. “And she has the means of striking back.”

Hedlund and company have not only worn their Viking heritage on their sleeve for years, they’ve also proven to be one of history’s most important flag bearers for metal-heads around the globe. At its heart, “Hammer Battalion” serves as a testament to these legions of proud fanatics, and delivers a commanding message loud and clear. “Rebellion is rising,” notes Hedlund when discussing the album’s title track. “We will form a number of battalions all over the world with warriors who are not afraid to fight. We are tired of being sitting ducks for bullshit authorities who know nothing better than to oppress us for reasons they won’t explain. We will take command of our own lives and get to work. Either like the chameleon – smoothly changing colors to benefit our survival, or by the furious rage of a Viking warrior – whichever suits us best. To the common man, his various pathetic and hollow forms of music is a hobby. Our music is a way of life. Join your local Hammer Battalion or start one yourself !

You have to admit that it’s a lovely piece of hyperbole. Still a dozen albums released over 18 years says that some one out there is listening. Other than me that is.

Loud, unintelligible vocals, loud, blindingly fast guitars, loud, a rhythm section that is solid enough to build a skyscraper on and and did I mention loud (thought so). All in all, just perfect. My friend will hate this with in the first 4 bars but hey at least the bands on Eurovision will sound way more normal from no on.

Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/666unleashed and www.unleashed.se/

The singer has a trace of an accent and I wondered if I could find more about this band. Lo and behold – imagine my surprise to find that Tiamat rose from the death metal scene in Sweden in the late 1980′s. Woah – didn’t expect that. The original band “Treblinka” reformed as Tiamat with a new musical philosophy and new influences. The band seems to have undergone several subsequent transformations with the only original member officially listed as Johan Edlund.

The soundtrack mentioned above and available below comes from Tiamat’s 1994 debut album “Wildhoney” and is called “Do You Dream of Me?”.

They have a swag of albums listed including their new album “Amanethes”, which remains a mystery because their official website is under construction and thus missing in action.

Be warned – this is a screamo band and you won’t want to miss their overwhelming sound if you are into serious rock.

“Forgiven Rival” lack the hair but they have the moves, head banging and guitar slamming. They are a bunch of local lads from Melbourne. They’ve been playing together since late 2004 or early 2005 and they’ve released a self titled demo and an ep in 2006, now in February 2008 their debut album “This Is A War” arrived.

A merging of rock melodies that explodes into a vocal extravaganza led by Joel Thornton on lead vocals and bass, Adrian Brown on guitar and vocals, Peter Fabrizio on guitar and vocals and Simeon Dux driving the drums.

Here follows a video of compiled clips to the song “The Untold” which is from the 2006 EP release – enjoy

Jools is currently hard at work on another project so I get to do today’s piece. And we are going to talk about guitars and a guitarist by the name of Rhys Chatham and the recently re-released “Guitar Trio“.
It comes in at around eight minutes long, and helped to establish Chatham’s manifesto of bringing punk’s intensity to avant-minimalism (or possibly that was the other way round). What you do is layer guitars on guitars and creating a hypnotic one-chord symphony/cacophony with rock solid drums and bass to give the the music it’s base to work from.

Granted this another one form the “hard listening” list but I think that even a casual listener can get something form this work. Head over to the MySpace site at www.myspace.com/rhyschatham and have a listen. The basic idea (as I see it) is that reducing it to the sound’s basic essence, normally hidden nuances begin to appear and these build and and grow and create something unplanned and chaotic. Everytime the piece is played it will be different.

Here is a cilp from Youtube…

After a number of years as a concert producer, I got tired of producing other people’s music. I had heard an early concert of the Ramones and was inspired by it, so I picked up electric guitar and made a composition called GUITAR TRIO in 1976/77 which combined the minimalist tendencies within which I had been working with a rock instrumentation and musicians.After working with 3 electric guitars, I upped the number to 6, and finally in 1989 to 100 electric guitars with a piece called AN ANGEL MOVES TOO FAST TO SEE, which I have been touring around the world with ever since. It was composed in France, where I had moved to that year. So I have been touring with an orchestra of 100 electric guitars for over 17 years now.

You will have to work a bit but it’s worth it… recommended