NEW VIDEO; CHAOS DREAMS by Voragan

Who'd-a thought it. Death metal, from Suffolk. And Essex. It does happen.

Voragan put out their excellent debut EP last year, titled Chaos Dreams (obligatory self-promotion of review), and below you can find their debut video, for the EP's title track. It's a very well put-together video, courtesy of Liam Davey, and within you can find moody black and white shots of headbanging, riffage and death growls. Top bombing. 

P.S. Once you've watched the video, head over to http://voragan.bigcartel.com/ and buy a copy of the aforementioned EP for the bargain price of £3.50. Deal. 

DETHKLOK AMS RETURNED

This happened a few days ago but my internet access has been sporadic at best. Animated metal gods Dethklok return with new song The Galaxy from upcoming album The Dethalbum III. Shoop-da-whoop! Dethklok are awesome and you should listen to them.

EP REVIEW - VORAGAN; 'CHAOS DREAMS'

VORAGAN: CHAOS DREAMS

★★★★

Solid first release from Ipswich/Colchestrian death metal quartet.

Chaos Dreams is the first EP by death/doom metallers Voragan, and they have done a fine job on it. Blending the more melodic side of the dark side of metal with some more plain evil-sounding (in a good way) stuff, and throwing in a few distinctive elements for good measure, it's a strong effort that shows good potential, albeit with the need for further refinement.

Criticisms first (getting them out of the way) - the most obvious aspect of the EP that needs improving is the vocals. The mix of cleans and death growls would work well, if they were not so quiet! There are hints of delightfully violent depth to the growls, but they suffer simply from being a bit muted at times, and the cleans may just need a spot of work on being a bit more...melodic. But vocals here need to be strong, and they don't quite step up.

That aside, it's otherwise top notch. It builds from an intro of moody piano/strings into the quietly brooding start of Epitaph For Paradise, which itself then breaks into glorious heavy...ness. Add to it the impressively brave 6/7 minute (respectively) epics of Fallen Angel/Chaos Dreams and shazam, we have a winner. The musicianship across the EP is very good - particularly, there's some great soloing, and the aforementioned great touches that add some great distinctivity (that's a word now. Deal with it) such as a noodly bass interlude on Chaos Dreams that carries the song through with some dark tones.

All in all, Voragan have made something quite impressive for a first release. Sure, there is some work needed, but if they'd made a perfect EP straight up, where would there be to go next? Damn good metal with great potential - keep it up. It's £2.50 as well, so support local bands and buy it! 

I'M NOT IN LOVE, IT'S JUST A PHASE THAT I'M GOING THROUGH.

Thanks Enrique Iglesias. Sadly though, this post has nothing to do with Henry Churches or his general genre of music, but it is about phases, namely, phases in musical taste/preference.

I go through different phases on pretty much a weekly basis - sometimes, I'm all over Jay-Z/Kanye's Watch The Throne album (which I do love, just not for its lyrical content); other times, it's the likes of Lana del Rey, Clare Maguire, Marina & The Diamonds. Currently, it's heavy/death metal. The first time I've strayed into the death metal territory, but I have TV show Metalocalypse to thank for that, for easing me into it.


A band I've just discovered (who aren't death metal), who I've instantly fallen in love with after just one track are French metallers Gojira, who I've discovered to be epic. So I ask you readers, if you know of any good heavy metal type bands, tell me about them! Below is the song that made me fall in love with Gojira, L'Enfant Sauvage - if you've never listened to them before, hopefully you can share in my new-found love of them!

MY LATEST MUSICAL OBSESSION

Some of you may be familiar with the Adult Swim TV series Metalocalypse. Most of you, I'll wager, are not: It's an animated show about fictional death metal band Dethklok, who are the world's most popular band, have an economy bigger than Belgium, and may or may not be at the centre of some apocalyptic conspiracy.


I'm addicted to the show - the episodes are only 10 minutes (seasons 1,2 and 4, anyway. 3 is 20 minutes), so it's incredibly easy to knock back 3 episodes in a row, which shows, as I cruised into season 4 last night after only about 2 weeks of watching the show. It's a macabre, blacker than black comedy about this inept-at-everything-except-death-metal quintet, and Mark Hamill plays their manager. Yes, Luke Skywalker.


The thing that's most impressive about it is that the writers, Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha, not only voice the show, but they do the music too. They write some epic yet tongue-in-cheek melodic death metal that's actually good. 2 albums' worth, I might add. So if you watch any episodes, whenever the band are playing, that's really been done, vocals and all, by the writers. And they tour and all, not actually taking on the personas of the band members, but just playing with session musicians, playing Dethklok's songs. It's fantastic.


Anyway, enough from me, here's a bit of Dethklok - an episode and some music.