YATTERING
Human’s Pain
(Season of Mist)
57:27min
This first
effort from YATTERING was discontinued for a long time until French label
Season of Mist has got the good idea to give it a new chance, following their
release of “Murder’s Concept”. This new edition is enhanced by improved
artwork and some bonus tracks, that are two cover versions (of BRUTAL TRUTH
and SLAYER, played with conviction and class!) and some promo material. For
those of you who crave about “Murder’s Concept” already, go for this one
as well as it shares a lot in common with the YATTERING’s sophomore album.
This Polish act plays a twisted form of brutal Death Metal and always tries to
come with fresh ideas and unexpected song structures. YATTERING could be seen
as the European answer to CRYPTOPSY: the two bands follow the same path, both
lyrically and music wise. YATTERING
are fortunate enough to count among their ranks drummer
extraordinaire Zabek, who stole the show more than often thanks to his amazing
playing abilities. Zabek truly appears like a mutated jazz player exploring
the realm of brutality, see the “Creative Chaos” video issued last year on
Metal Minds Productions to judge by yourselves. On
“Human’s Pain”, some backing vocal effects are not so appropriate, as
they sound a little too close to what crap “alternative Metal bands”
deliver today, but fortunately the growled parts dominate the mix. For a first
effort, the general production is very satisfying and compliment very well
what YATTERING is all about: extreme brutality but not devoid of finesse and
technical prowess. If you don’t know them, don’t miss the chance to
discover this highly talented band ! Creative chaos indeed! Go here
 to
order it.
Edouard Vergriete
BACK
YATTERING
III – promo pack
(MP3 CD-R)
47:21min
I received this promo pack directly from the band. Unfortunately every single
track is cut after one or two minutes. Extremely annoying! So my first impulse
was not to review this at all but as the material is really strong I’ll give
you a rough overview of the music on here. First of all there is the
“Genocide” album which is 100% in the vein of the first two YATTERING albums,
maybe even a little more twisted and sick. Secondly, there is the album
“III” which completely leaves the Metal behind. Sometimes it reminds me a
little of ABORYM – but not really – or PRODIGY (‘Firestarter’) but very
often it swings in a relaxed flow that nastily contrasts with the cold
industrial sound (might be caused by the MP3 format, though). So hands off in
case you’re exclusively into Death Metal! But as far as I can tell from these
shortened versions of the songs, it’s worth a try - at least for open-minded
people. Finally, there is a “live” video clip of ‘Panic In A Sea Of
Blood’ (a “Genocide” - track) which can be downloaded from the band’s
homepage. So let’s hope I get these two CDs unshortened for a more detailed
review, huh? Until then: check out YATTERING’s realm on the internet: www.yattering.pl
Ramon Claassen
BACK
YORBLIND
Melancholy Souls
(Thundering Records)
46:18min
“Scandinavian Death Metal!!!!!!!” Hm, I wonder what I have to expect from a
band which exactly printed this sentence on the booklet of their promo CD? Well,
perhaps music inspired by bands like e. g. Dark
Tranquillity? Ahh, I just have to go on reading the backside of this
booklet: “Fans of In Flames, Dark
Tranquillity, Soilwork, this is the new revelation to come”. Honestly I
don’t know what I should think about these words. I hear some influences of Dark
Tranquillity and some of older In
Flames, but I don’t hear so many Soilwork-influences
here. So keep it like it is, YORBLIND are from Paris and playing melodic Death
Metal in the Scandinavian tradition. The production is fantastic and for a first
output I can tell you that this is a quite interesting one. Still I need to say
that YORBLIND have to improve a lot to find their own identity because there are
far too many bands playing this type of Death Metal at the moment. And who has
enough money to buy everything? Well, a song like 'Forget' with really
outstanding and untypical female vocals makes me looking forward to hear their
next recording and sounds really promising between the other eleven more or less
typical songs. Check ‘em out, especially if you are a fan of a band like Dark
Tranquillity. www.yorblind.com,
www.thundering-records.com
Thomas Ehrmann
BACK
YWOLF
Dream Warrior
(Adipocere Records)
54:23min
To tell you the truth, I was ready to shred this record to pieces. After all,
Gabriel Wolf was already responsible for the infamous FINNUGOR release I
reviewed in these very pages some time ago. And my first random listen of this
one left me in a state of annoyed perplexity, to the point I found what I heard
utterly lame and ludicrous. But I decided to give “Dream Warrior” another
chance, because I never slag the work of an artist by pleasure and without solid
facts to bring forth. And guess what, a more attentive listening of this album
made me re-estimate my initial feelings. Let me tell you first that you will not
find guitars and drums on this record. The sole element tying “Dream Warrior”
with something Metal is the vocals of Gabriel himself, pretty extreme in the
sense he overdoes them a little bit too much. More than often you have the
impression of an evil Donald Duck whispering at your ears, and it could become
unpleasant after a while. But thankfully the music makes up for this little
annoyance, except for a stupid Techno remix featured at the end of the album. It
is based on strong melodies performed on keyboards exclusively by Gabriel Wolf
alone.
The songs present a very charming and even bewitching character, once you
listen to one of them, the main theme stays rooted deeply into your mind. I
can’t call this ambient music per se
because the structures are too solidly laid down, and it's not Gothic music too.
Gabriel seems keen to adopt the Black Metal tag to describe his main source of
inspiration music wise, and why not? I read comparisons with AKHENATON and
DAEMONIUM (two projects signed on Adipocere Records some years ago); I guess it
is valid only if you keep in mind that no guitars are used on the YWOLF case.
Lyric wise Gabriel Wolf explores Heroic Fantasy themes. From what I understood
visiting Gabriel’s website, “Dream Warrior” echoes musically Heroic
Fantasy books very popular in Hungary (YWOLF country of origin) and written by
John
Caldwell. Note that Gabriel appears as a fictional character in one of
those books, an interesting fact if you ask me. And the CD features two
“novels” (“novellas” should have been a more precise word, considering
the length of the texts) written by Gabriel Wolf as a bonus, an unusual and
original occurrence. All this to simply say that even if the music presented
here may not instantly convince you, this CD should be listened to at least once.
Personally I like the naiveté and the enthusiasm coming out of this disc, and I
am glad to have had the opportunity to experiment this music, and
for sure this album will stay in my collection. Give this refreshing
record a fair try; you could be surprised just like me. To investigate more on
the YWOLF discography, check the Gabriel Wolf’s web site at: www.ywolf.cjb.net.
To end on a rather funny note, I would like to say that one the tracks (‘Key
Of Dimensions’) was surely musically inspired by a famous EURYTHMICS song!
Edouard Vergriete
BACK
YYRKOON
Occult Medicine
(Osmose Productions)
46:21min
Another difficult review to write… How I hate this kind of record! It is
musically ok for sure, but I wonder about the life span of such an album. If you
remember well my recent TRAUMA review, I stated then that a good mastering of
the instruments and the quality of a production can’t make up for a memorable
album. Well, cut and paste that review into this one, because the result is more
or less the same. The musicians of YYRKOON (a cool moniker by the way, taken
from the Elric saga by Michael Moorcock) are without doubt talented and
experienced, the music has its moment, the work put into this is obvious, so
where is the problem? Simply in the fact that I feel absolutely nothing while
listening to this and that I am sure I will be unable to identify this band in a
blind test in one month (and even a week) from now. Unfortunately this is more
and more true with the “slick” productions I listened to recently; it seems
the list of bands of this kind is endless. YYRKOON play now (I read it was not
the case previously) a form of commonly accepted modern Death Metal, totally
clinical and devoid of hooks. You will swear this band comes from Sweden due to
the soundscape these guys paint. The irony is they have a track called
‘Blasphemy’ in which you will not find any trace of madness or chaos. This
record could be associated with all the bands trying hard to come up with the
best product possible and forgetting the necessary outré elements that made
some legendary albums still fresh sounding these days. If you dig bands like
ARCH ENEMY, with growled vocals on nice melodic guitars, this one is surely for
you. Sorry, but I prefer leather, spikes, silly lyrics about the power of Satan
and musicians that put all they have into their music, regardless of their
actual abilities. This is the idea of Metal I stand for. I know: I am a moron!
Available here.
Edouard Vergriete
BACK
YYRKOON
Unhealthy Opera
(Osmose Productions)
48:38min
It seems YYRKOON has reviewed their choices since the issue of their previous
effort (“Occult Medicine”) since “Unhealthy Opera” sounds more focused
and a little less clinical. A sort of Lovecraftian concept unifies the thirteen
songs on offer here, and that maybe helped the band to come up with a more
cohesive album than it was the case before. The production was handled in
Denmark, more precisely at the Hansen studio, no wonder then the album sounds
very much like a Scandinavian melodic Death / Thrash affair so much in favour
today. Like I wrote in my “Occult Medicine” review, it is difficult to me to
emotionally connect with this kind of release, even if I admit the amount of
work put in “Unhealthy Opera” is obviously phenomenal. The musicians prove
themselves extremely talented; a lot of effort was directed towards refined song
writing, trying to find new structures and ideas. Still the final result sounds
very synthetic and devoid of a real feeling to my ears, but I am surely not the
right person to judge about that. I prefer old fashioned music (this betrays my
age I suppose), with a vintage analogic production. What I appreciate the most
on this album is the vocal delivery, always kept deep and guttural but with a
certain clarity remaining, only on the track 13 (a bonus song only featured on
the limited edition of the disc) clear voices appear, not a good idea if you ask
me. To sum up the overall atmosphere of this disc, think of a more melodic
version of ZYKLON, and I guess you will get a fair idea of the content of
“Unhealthy Opera”. I am pretty sure this album could find its audience
pretty easily, given its qualities. It is simply not for me. www.yyrkoon.net.
It is on sale
here.
Edouard Vergriete
BACK
|