Angel Blake Angel Blake
Metal Blade Records 2006
By Katalin Sipos
It is difficult to forget about the past of our favourite musicians when it comes to their new bands. No matter what they say, most of the time we expect something similar to what they had created before. But when Marko said the death of the old is the birth of the new!, he really meant it. After the break up of The Crown, guitarist-songwrinter Marko Tervonen started a new project on his own. He intended to play all the instruments, and invited a vocalist, Tony Jelencovich (B-Thong, Mnemic, Transport League) to complete his new musical visions. He wanted to get far away from the musical path of The Crown and create something that was rather influenced by Paradise Lost, Danzig, Sentenced and Metallica. And he made it.
As I am already a fan of the bands Marko mentioned as the influences of this new musical path, it was really easy for me to fall in love with Angel Blake. Overall the music is catchy and melancholy, but filled with hard rocking melodies. Just like Sentenced it is a perfect combination of dark atmosphere and rock music, and sometimes spiced up with bone-crushing heavy parts, just to let the influence of death metal leave some traces on it as well.
Acoustic guitar opens the intro, The Force, accompanied by the electric guitar shorty afterwards, before the drums and the bass enter. Gently working their way to the powerful drum beats of Retaliate, the band use this song to show off both their heavier side with the driving thrash riffs, and also their melodic side with the catchy, sing-along chorus lines. Its aggressive but also mellow, and it has a good vibe, easily becoming the first favourite track of the album. Lycanthrope is a simpler dark rock song, in the vein of Sentenced. With great riffs and again sing along chorus lines. Self-Terminate is a gloomier piece, filled with dark passion. It is like a more rocking combination of Danzig and Type O Negative. Second best song of the album. With its slow pace I found Solitude, My Friend a bit boring, while from another point of view you can say it is depressing and suicidal. Autumnal is the second instrumental track and I love it. Sounds like an old piano record but it really grabs the listeners attention. It differs from the whole album, but still fits perfectly. It is like a short break to stop for a minute, but is so melancholic, you can even see the leaves falling on a chilly autumn day.
The Forsaken is again a song strongly influenced by Sentenced, with lots of energy and with true melancholy in the lyrics and vocals. The opening guitar lines of Thousands Storms remind me of Danzig, but later the track becomes more thrash and death metal influenced with the so called Sentenced spice in it too. A pretty good mixture! The cover of the Rolling Stones song, Paint It Black is much darker than the original, but remains nothing groundbreaking or special. Though despite this I really like the Angel Blake version of it. The dark vibe and the Tonys vocals give a new meaning to the track. Till The End closes the album, another melancholic song that I found too slow for my taste. It perfectly closes the album but for me it is rather like a lengthened agony only.
Marko Tervonen has proved it again: he is capable of writing great songs those are musically varied but also catchy. Whats more, this album is proof of his multi-instrumental talent as well. Tony Jelencovich did a great job too, as the voice of Angel Blake. His clean, strong vocals are always fitting to the varied styles of the songs.
This is a strong debut from a new band, but that is just what we might have expected from musicians like Marko and Tony. But without setting our standards too high, it is a promising debut.
8/10
Official Angelblake website
Official Metal Blade website
Metal Blade Records 2006
By Katalin Sipos
It is difficult to forget about the past of our favourite musicians when it comes to their new bands. No matter what they say, most of the time we expect something similar to what they had created before. But when Marko said the death of the old is the birth of the new!, he really meant it. After the break up of The Crown, guitarist-songwrinter Marko Tervonen started a new project on his own. He intended to play all the instruments, and invited a vocalist, Tony Jelencovich (B-Thong, Mnemic, Transport League) to complete his new musical visions. He wanted to get far away from the musical path of The Crown and create something that was rather influenced by Paradise Lost, Danzig, Sentenced and Metallica. And he made it.
As I am already a fan of the bands Marko mentioned as the influences of this new musical path, it was really easy for me to fall in love with Angel Blake. Overall the music is catchy and melancholy, but filled with hard rocking melodies. Just like Sentenced it is a perfect combination of dark atmosphere and rock music, and sometimes spiced up with bone-crushing heavy parts, just to let the influence of death metal leave some traces on it as well.
Acoustic guitar opens the intro, The Force, accompanied by the electric guitar shorty afterwards, before the drums and the bass enter. Gently working their way to the powerful drum beats of Retaliate, the band use this song to show off both their heavier side with the driving thrash riffs, and also their melodic side with the catchy, sing-along chorus lines. Its aggressive but also mellow, and it has a good vibe, easily becoming the first favourite track of the album. Lycanthrope is a simpler dark rock song, in the vein of Sentenced. With great riffs and again sing along chorus lines. Self-Terminate is a gloomier piece, filled with dark passion. It is like a more rocking combination of Danzig and Type O Negative. Second best song of the album. With its slow pace I found Solitude, My Friend a bit boring, while from another point of view you can say it is depressing and suicidal. Autumnal is the second instrumental track and I love it. Sounds like an old piano record but it really grabs the listeners attention. It differs from the whole album, but still fits perfectly. It is like a short break to stop for a minute, but is so melancholic, you can even see the leaves falling on a chilly autumn day.
The Forsaken is again a song strongly influenced by Sentenced, with lots of energy and with true melancholy in the lyrics and vocals. The opening guitar lines of Thousands Storms remind me of Danzig, but later the track becomes more thrash and death metal influenced with the so called Sentenced spice in it too. A pretty good mixture! The cover of the Rolling Stones song, Paint It Black is much darker than the original, but remains nothing groundbreaking or special. Though despite this I really like the Angel Blake version of it. The dark vibe and the Tonys vocals give a new meaning to the track. Till The End closes the album, another melancholic song that I found too slow for my taste. It perfectly closes the album but for me it is rather like a lengthened agony only.
Marko Tervonen has proved it again: he is capable of writing great songs those are musically varied but also catchy. Whats more, this album is proof of his multi-instrumental talent as well. Tony Jelencovich did a great job too, as the voice of Angel Blake. His clean, strong vocals are always fitting to the varied styles of the songs.
This is a strong debut from a new band, but that is just what we might have expected from musicians like Marko and Tony. But without setting our standards too high, it is a promising debut.
8/10
Official Angelblake website
Official Metal Blade website
