DEVACRON: West Of Hell - Spiral Empire (2012)

tisdag 22 maj 2012

West Of Hell - Spiral Empire (2012)

2012 has musically been pretty damn good so far, and we're not even quite half through it, yet. I've been pretty active with checking out new bands / releases lately and I stumbled on this little piece of metal music. It features the singer from Zimmers Hole and Mechanism (both featuring my favorite drummer Gene Hoglan, unfortunately he ain't playing on this album, but it's a great drummer on this album nonetheless), whose voice I like quite a lot. Musically the band themselves said this is a variety record and I can do nothing but agree. While its main roots are in the thrash folder, it still crosses the lines of other genres as heavy and I even guess progressive, groove and power metal to some extent.

The musicians, apart from singer "The Heathen", are no guys I've heard of before, but they don't lack any skill in playing and keeping their shit together. The guitars are really cool, with some great riffing but especially solos, I have to say. At least that was the biggest surprise to me, guitar-wise. The rhythm section is heavy and in full-throttle with a thick bass and massive drums, and together the whole mix is nicely done and every instrument is heard.

The somewhat (small) let-downs of this album is the album production. First off, "Death Magnetic" anyone?? The thing is clearly in the red. I HATE that. Secondly it sounds like a toy at times, you know like a toy machine or something, plastic-ly basically. But it ain't thaaat bad anyway, just a liiitle at times, that's all.

Material-wise I can't really put my finger on any "hit(s)" on this album as it's very consistent all through, but on the other hand it's not always good either. Sometimes it's actually very great to have that "special tune" everybody either loves or hates, but maybe most importantly - catches the attention of the listener. Therefore, I can't really give any tip on what song(s) to try out, so try the whole album instead. It's worth it.

Final rating: 8,7 / 11 ("this go to eleven" ;-) )

Listen to the whole album for FREE at Spotify, and some money will go to the band / rightholders.

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About this blog:

Welcome to Devacron, estimated 2011.

This is my place where I occassionally aggrevate and write about stuff I like, mostly about music or video games. I am a huge fan of metal music (primarily) and totally non-elitist, i.e. an open-minded metal music listener. I also particularly like electronic/synth/ambient music as well as some other styles.

I have a strange obsession with the 1980's and that's something I've had since I was a kid. Born in 1990, I perfectly missed out on the entire decade. As a kid I simply enjoyed lots of 80's movies and the soundtracks. Think Robocop, Terminator and cheesy 80's music as well as rock anthems. I loved it!

In 2002 I got interested in music and 80's heavy metal was my one great love from the get-go. I grew up with very young parents, both of whom were teenage metalheads in the 80's. Safe to say, they nutured me with the greatest kind of music ever made.

Other interests range from movies to video games to motorcycles. I like a lot of sci-fi movies but also fantasy. Whatever is like an adventure movie, I suppose. I've also been a gamer all my life, starting off on Sega Megadrive and NES as a small kid. These days I rock the PS4 and PC gaming.

I'm also a musician. I was in a (mixed) metal band called Devastation (Sweden) for ten years, playing drums and doing backing vocals (mostly death metal growling). The band renamed itself Into The Pentagram in 2014 and became more of a pure death/black metal band.