Thanks to my longsuffering mail carrier I'll be ringing in the New Year with four new records from two late-2011 discoveries, Septicflesh and Fates Warning (yes, I know I am 25 years late here).
My Septicflesh collection has now tripled, adding Communion (2008) and Sumerian Daemons (2003) to The Great Mass, one of my favorite discoveries from other folks' 2011 Best Record lists.
I dived into Fates Warning after passing them by most of my life and just this year falling in love with the Arch/Matheos record, Sympathetic Resonance. I started with their two earliest records in stock and available for immediate delivery, The Spectre Within (1985) and Awaken the Guardian (1986). I was shocked - and pleased - to find that the Awaken the Guardian was a triple-disc set with an extra CD of live and demo tracks and a DVD with a 12-track live show from that era's lineup (all for $13.28 brand-new - way to go, Metal Blade!).
I am looking forward to starting 2012 off with a lot of new music - and hope to spend the entire year in the same fashion.
PoorWater may be on to something. This five-piece prog outfit from Mesa, Arizona have just released their recording debut, Harvesting Habits, and it has quietly worked its way into my regular rotation with the usual crew of heavies. It's not a perfect record (how many debuts are?) and seems frequently to be searching to find its place but, when it does, it shines.
The star is immediately evident. Lauren Jones on cello damn near owns the entire album, immediately recalling for me Jessy Greene's violin contributions to the Geraldine Fibbers (oh, to be back in '95...). Strings are nothing new or unusual on a progressive rock record but she's got a tone that demands the listener's attention and dominates from the get-go, instantly grabbing hold via the brief instrumental opener, "Found." The following track, "Answers," is one that flounders, unfortunately, with lead vocals on the track turning in what happens to be the weakest performance on the album, an over-emotive wail that fails to convince despite its hammy delivery, hung over a meandering melody that fails to ever find a groove. It's a rough start to the album and one I worry may send potential listeners packing too early.
I don't know Fates Warning beyond recognition of their name and do not believe I have ever knowingly heard any work of Jim Matheos or John Arch prior to grabbing Sympathetic Resonance earlier this year. I know I need to check out some of their mid-80s work and hope to resolve that gap on the shelf after the Christmas coffers have been replenished. I have been enjoying Sympathetic Resonance since Autumn and, while it didn't rank in my Top Ten for 2011, it is a solid - and very heavy - progressive metal record worthy of addition to the library of any fan of Rush, Dream Theater, Yes or the recent offerings from Cormorant or Opeth.
Prior to purchase I had read of listeners unhappy with John Arch's vocals but I found them to be perfectly listenable with an impressive range to boot - and certainly a good foil for the guitar architecture of Jim Matheos, whose body of work I now absolutely need to hear. I was also immediately taken with the percussion of Bobby Jarzombek (who I do know from the marvelous Demons & Wizards project as well as the Halford records) and it is not often I am much affected by the "tone" of drums but, in the case of Sympathetic Resonance, the man again distinguishes himself from his peers. Add in solos from Frank Aresti (OK, I really need to find some Fates Warning) and this record is a modern prog lover's dream come true. There are no keyboards to be found - just riffs, riffs, riffs, shifting tempos and sick leads all amounting to rock polished to a razor-sharp intensity. The lyric is intelligent though veers toward stereotypical prog pomposity but, really, the words are just a vehicle for the great Arch vocals. Sympathetic Resonance is great, technically-impressive prog with a hefty heart of metal and, top ten or not, one of the best records I heard in 2011.
I don't know pre-tragedy Decapitated (apparently a 2007 automobile accident left the band's drummer deceased and vocalist in a coma) and recently grabbed the repopulated band's Carnival is Forever based solely on its inclusion in many 2011 Top Ten lists. It's an extreme, highly technical metal assault that comes across with a very present-feeling, almost live production quality. It's also just OK for me. I like it, will shelve it as opposed to selling it and will probably never replay nor seek any additional Decapitated music (aside from working the excellent "Homo Sum" into some iTunes playlists). This brief record, clocking in around forty minutes with eight songs (one of which is an instrumental), plays like an EP structured around a couple good songs (add "404" to "Homo Sum" for the essentials) with the bulk sounding like one chug-chug-chug after another slightly different chug-chug-chug. If I had been invested in the band in the past I may have been more interested to hear this development of their sound but as a wholly new (to me) standalone experience, Carnival is Forever, despite its name, amounts to about 10 minutes of fun.
