![]() ![]() There was a neighborhood near the water that was completely gone - not a single structure remained. King Kamehameha III Elementary School was decimated, a mess of collapsed steel. It was so one-dimensional that it was hard to imagine the scenic town that was once here. ![]() Street after street after street was nothing but rubble and foundation. What struck me the most was the lack of color of the scorched earth sandwiched between glistening blue ocean and deep green-brown mountains in the distance. I flew to Hawaii on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning, I was in a helicopter flying over Lahaina, a normally vibrant west Maui town that draws visitors from all over the world. This explosion of sound brings a veritable showcase of metal flavors, from the ever-present metalcore and symphonic black metal to more mainstream influences.LAHAINA, Hawaii – I've seen my share of a wildfire's destruction on a community, but in more than eight years of covering these disasters as a video and photojournalist, the scene over Hawaii was one of the worst.īased in Las Vegas, I'm used to being dispatched to wildfires in other places. "The much-awaited sophomore album Fixation takes a bold and unflinching deviation away from the already established sound and launches The Ember, The Ash into a new world of possibilities and a genre-defining supernova of colliding styles. The end product is hard to turn off, and seems to herald a new sound that could believably sweep across metal as a whole - if it doesn’t alienate everybody along the way." One minute, you’re getting helpings of Slipknot and Code Orange the next it’s Emperor, Naglfar, and Sigh then blindsiding doses of Polyphia and Igorrr kick in. "Unpredictably hard-hitting but dramatically sweeping, the record is stream-of-consciousness view into the mind of a modern metal fan. ![]() While most of 鬼’s music seems like an attempt to navigate a difficult inner landscape, “Strychnine” is the kind of discordant fight music that reminds me of prime Converge. "Fixation‘s first single and opening track is called “Strychnine,” and it’s a frantic, furious two-and-a-half-minute wallop with a screeching guitar riff and a growling fight-music energy. "The Ember, the Ash has a sound dominated by loud, grimy guitars that are sharp as knives and a vocal style that screams (yes, literally) “-core.” Said screams are a bit of an acquired taste, but they suit the music well dark, it’s jagged, and symphonic for sure, with distant synths coating the grimy riffs with a gloomy edge that makes the song more digestible for those who aren’t big on deathcore and its related styles." ![]() Far more than any of their blackened peers, THE EMBER, THE ASH make this willful combining of disparate elements sound like the most natural thing in the world." "Blessed with a production that favors infernal squall over the immaculate squeak of a Pro Tools grid, "Fixation" loudly demonstrates its creators' allegiance to the dark side. Some might baulk at such a preposterous proposition on paper, but the sheer exuberance of the music makes it difficult not to be swept up in its bombast. Within, there's room for surprising detours such as the Spanish guitars on 'A Growing Emptiness' or the black-metal-goes-Muse approach that provides an outro for 'The Colossal Void'. "The blueprint laid down throughout Fixation's 37 minutes is a curious hybrid of symphonic black metal and elegant metalcore. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |