Taberah - The Light of Which I Dream review

Year : 2011
Genre : Power Metal
Label : Evilution Records
Origin : Australia
Rating : 8.8 / 10

Australian Taberah's delicious debut - show forgiveness for the covert art and logo - invades air particles near Yours, Truly in exceptionally angry-, YET exacting power metal fashion. Imagine a musical language that is akin in remote character to that of Iron Maiden, but, the theatrical (melo)drama-spice on top that seems to be a keenly cultivated tool of the Brit Great Old Ones, is traded herein for a more vile, mean, Black Sabbatish behavioral stance. Most of the time, that is. Taberah certainly is no stranger to the propensity to go kinna-epic during the builds, - yet melodrama and the communist marching song vibe is not invited - and the best aspect you will have the option to gradually grow aware of regarding the release, is an impression that the debut manages to remain integral and unalloyed to its furious roots even when addressing pathos on its own peculiar terms. The only blatant blemishes I personally have found on the record are the utilization of the rhyme pair : "fire" and "desire". The minor-, but more persistent blemish is the singing on this album itself, which sounds to be the epitome of nothing special. It turns out though that, from a musical point of view, this album is pretty much sex appeal and efficiency from top to bottom,  and, if interested, you need to read out more to find out how and why.


Taberah is not in this business to worship meticulous over-production-, nor the false prophets of effect-scharlatanism: every single thing on the record sounds - in a positive manner - "just" natural, as would the naked drums and amplifiers if you were there in the studio. This, first and foremost, guarantees a lush and intimate listening experience to the mere rawness and power of the soberly controlled raging of the cultivated elements.

The compositions are playful, valiant and straightforward at their respective cores, seeking, finding, then offering great pleasure both with the ever-timeless wonder of the bare-open ringed power chord AND Rambo-grade "listen 'er, n00b" machine gun riffing. The riffcraft on the delivery is exceptionally rich and well sculpted, and serves a galore of fine stimuli to soak your ears into, so the band leaves nothing to be desired - fired!! - in this crucial department, never failing to satisfy your related cravings very thoroughly and gracefully.

Though the lyrics sometimes exhibit some pretty weightless and seriously uninspired alibi-profanity - "do not fuck with us!" - wish granted, Sir - and even relative idiocy - a song about Rambo with the line : "do not fuck with me, I'm Rambo!", WTF, I thought we were through with this?! - but, other than that, the singing style of the singer dude is passable. He does not sound too playful and/or confident, he instead sounds like a man with an agenda he is not sure he could pull off. He sometimes is paaaaaaainfully, painfully under-toned like an MMA fighter after being pepper sprayed, and his performance, while acceptable, does NOT elevate the sonic surroundings at ALL.

WHERE! is the Butch Balich!! I WANT the Butch Balich!!

Taberah's singer tends to refrain from "Gimmedaworld, Fukaz!" - type belts and bends, - and refraining from those is a nono! - and, instead, renders comfy-cozy "uhuh"-grade performance at best and shows no propensity whatsoever to move out of his comfort zone. Attention! Sometimes he sounds quite decent, I like his performance on "Freedom or Death", for example but, also notice : this song is a copy of Metallica's Blackened. The singer sounds like a Hetfield copy herein, too. On the other hand, related good news galore : none of James LaBrie's horrifying emotional slime - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! the HORROR!! the HIDEUM!! - will be found on your white tie afterwards.

The guitar solo work demands mentioning, too : Taberah has quite decent of a set of solo-capable guest-axewielders amidst its debut front-liners, and their powerful, well articulated playing reeks the Yngwie Malmsteen all the way from start to home, which is not the biggest of strikes you have to endure during a reincarnation.

A tight, focused, muscular declaration that has fine enough musicianship to give the LP an autonomous and rabid character, which is a trait you not frequently see-, let alone hear in the power metal "vaaaaloooor all-whitstaaaaaaand!! weeee fight toooo theee eeeeend!!" direction. 90% of this release is sexily ANGRY, yet truly exigent power metal, and the remaining portion is dedicated either to passable bonfire metal ballads I greatly enjoy skipping, or, a little homage for the originators. Explanation : the titular track "The Light of Which I Dream" has a more pronounced Iron Maiden influence with that peculiar galloping-ass riffage and the similarly Iron Maiden-like 3-4 notes guitar-patterns that are delighted about the fact how the different harmonic structures they are colliding with are serving different harmonic flavors to them. The build later on arrives to a tight-, raging mid-tempo jam session that reminiscent in character to Hendrix's hefty rhythm guitar style, and then the armored Iron Maiden gallops diligently out of your sight to save yet another day before the sun comes up again. All in all, Taberah's debut is superbly crafted, hefty power metal, and the only thing that is scary about it is the artwork, for which the punishment should be inventive sex with the creature on the cover.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events review

Year : 2011
Genre : Progressive Rock Metal
Label : Roadrunner Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.0 / 10

Buy it now

Fanbase enigma Dream Theater comes forward with a release of fervently stacked ambitions, and the resultant stimuli is no doubt eventful enough of a contribution to assuage a secretive - but not exactly "silentive" - suspicion in the finely calibrated ear that a healthy amount of this delivery is soaked into-, and made out of compositional wizardry, exercised for the mere, grandiose sake of it.

Dream Theater's A Dramatic Turn of Events, not surprisingly, has a highly monstrous level of complexity to it, primarily consisting of its valiant will and granite determination to filter all its moods and favorite fixations through an adventurous approach to music creation. Read on to find more about this flamboyant release, or don't.


Many, but not at all of surprising character are the numbers of paths and emotional postures Dream Theater chooses to thread along on this row of statements. The band exhibits a particular interest in addressing their readiness to deliver on the respective fields of a sanely-, but harshly constrained genre palette. The basic vibes of gloom-trodden power metal, neoclassical sonic spellcasting, synthetic noteburst-parade, hell, even metalcorish undertones and odd time signatures are all part of the game, and everything the group delivers to the table, IS decently delivered and elegantly served.

DUDE?? What do you mean "decently"?? Dream Theater is like : my life!

I mean exactly that. From the point of view of ultimate value though, - check the very sloppily concealed irony herein - Dream Theater's A Dramatic Turn of Events fails to bring any dramatic turns of events to the fray. If you need to convince me that your album is a dramatic turn of events : you are failing. Dream Theater's latest is an accessible, and, as noted, doubtless extremely eventful output, yet also is one that never quite leaves you without the suspicion that some elaborate passages of complexity are simply there so you have something to chew diligently on, and serve no particular function in the actual DNA of the track you are listening to.

The band has a noticeable tendency to summon a pleasant, fluid feel via the simultaneous utilization of various devices suitable to cause aural vibrations, - a surprise! - yet, in actuality, these delicate sonic entities have a very limited field of operation if the mission they have been assigned to, is simply is to connect - in heart - traditional exhibitions of power metal/metalcore/I got the gloom again compositional techniques without end. When the group releases the kind-of experimental Animal for the worship of the oh!, so beautiful fractal-complexity, the result is OK enough, but far far far - and not close to - from great, particularly because these segments tend to lack vocal delivery. They are lacking vocal delivery because the agenda herein <> resonating music that has a story to it, the agenda simply is to

overcreate

layered sonic constructs into existence

because we can.

These are instrumental - uhm - "instrumentalizations", and once these sequences sound elaborately chaotic and chaotically elaborate enough, then the band gives the nod, yet, having a musical message you can spiritually decipher, is of no notable interest for the squad. It is not that this approach has limited potentiality, in fact, it has JUST that. But it already has been done much better recently, with vocals reigning in bloom in the chaos, by bands like Unexpect, see here.

The following matter is one that is prone to radical levels of subjectivity, but me, myself and I, along with the dudette who is writing this, find the lead singer's voice relatively uneventful, and when he is over-emoting in the slower declarations of lyrical aspirations of the record, threads of hairs I did not know I have stand still on my shell. These lyrical statements are reminiscent of the Pink Floydish suffering skills, and frankly, they are pretty efficient at annoying the living death out of me.

Dream Theater's A Dramatic Turn of Events still is a full musculature build with a whole lot of luscious sonic portions to bath your existence in, and its ubiquitous proneness of getting caught rabidly masturbating is as much of a likable defining factor of it as it is its relative hindrance.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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