...and with that subject line you might know where this is going. But, hell, I just wanna go on the record here.
There have been some great CDs coming out this year....really strong stuff.....but ever since its release, the one that still goes in regularly here, the one that seems always somehow to get into rotation, and never seems to get boring....rather, it only gets better and better.....is....you guessed it - Vanden Plas - Christ O.
So, I'm posting here (yet again) because I'm starting to think this album will slip into relative obscurity, and it deserves soooooo much more than that. Bryant said some time back that he thought it one of the best metal albums of all time. And you know something? He's fucking right. I really don't make additions to the fabled top ten of all time list very often, but this record is in there now, and solidly so. Somewhere way, way up there. I'll have to think about it, but it is officially one my favorites anyway. And for what that's worth, that's a list (for me) that contains such albums as Number of the Beast, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath...well, name your poison. This may even be a top fiver for me. The below review references OMII, and frankly? It's better than that (for me). It's story is told with such class, such literacy, that I can't begin to say. The most astonishing thing is that it really could have been a recipe for disaster. Throwing something like the Count of Monte Cristo/Christ thing into the metal blender is just like asking for trouble on the cheese meter. But these guys pull it off. Understated, yet heavy, emotional brilliance Mark my words, that new Priest album, for instance, is a similar recipe for disaster......I mean, Nostrodamus? They might as well do a metal "opera" about monster trucks. I have major doubts about that one... Sorry.....anyhoo, this review from the Net says it better than i ever could. Again, Christ O is one of the greats. An amazing metal masterpiece.
Oh, and last by me, thanks Bryant, I feel like I owe ya big for raving this one up. According to the counter in my iTunes, I've listened to this album 57(!!) times...and frankly, it still sound exciting and new.
Review by Thom Jurek
The bottom line for those who don't already know: Vanden Plas rocks. This German progressive metal band is disciplined, with excellent musicians who understand complexity and know how to employ it without it getting in the way of fine songwriting, emotional transference, and ultimately the kind of hair-raising excess that makes heavy metal such an enduring genre. Christ 0 is a concept album about a serial killer (the album is titled after him) and the man (Inspector X) who seeks to capture him. Should one find that concept to be clichéd, stop reading right now. These nine songs reflect a manner of composition, sublime taste, bone-crunching power, and breathtaking dynamics, along with an excellent use of texture and sonics not heard since Queensrÿche's classic Operation: Mindcrime. This is the story of a man betrayed, stripped of everything he loves, and convicted of a crime he did not commit -- and who ultimately loses his own humanity. The man who pursues him must confront the very things in himself that keep him obsessed with his prey. Musically, this is where the line between symphonic metal and the classic sounds of early (In Trance period) Scorpions, Dio, Queensrÿche, Judas Priest, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis becomes blurred. Andy Kuntz is a singer who doesn't have to shriek or growl, because he is a trained vocalist. His songwriting partners, keyboardist Gunter Werno and guitarist Stephen Lill (whose brother Andreas is the band's drummer, and who joins with bassist Torsten Reichert to make a grand rhythm section), understand his mind and vision. They have the musical prowess to explore the margins of their genre, creating lyrical backdrops for Kuntz. The songs meld and blend with ease, an unholy grace, and a sense of good and evil fighting one another -- and the outcome does not become cut and dried or clear to the listener until the very end. Christ 0 is a journey into darkness through light and perhaps ending there, but reviewing single tracks would lessen it somehow, as it is a whole. It is the finest moment yet from a band that relentlessly ventures into new places with its material, expanding the genre and offering something other than the usual tropes associated with metal. The bonus track, "Gethsemane" from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar, is a moving, pulsing, barely restrained wild animal of a track. Perhaps they should take on the whole thing someday -- they could pull it off without effort. Vanden Plas are easily the finest progressive metal band out there. Hopefully Americanski audiences will connect with this one. Seek it out.
There have been some great CDs coming out this year....really strong stuff.....but ever since its release, the one that still goes in regularly here, the one that seems always somehow to get into rotation, and never seems to get boring....rather, it only gets better and better.....is....you guessed it - Vanden Plas - Christ O.
So, I'm posting here (yet again) because I'm starting to think this album will slip into relative obscurity, and it deserves soooooo much more than that. Bryant said some time back that he thought it one of the best metal albums of all time. And you know something? He's fucking right. I really don't make additions to the fabled top ten of all time list very often, but this record is in there now, and solidly so. Somewhere way, way up there. I'll have to think about it, but it is officially one my favorites anyway. And for what that's worth, that's a list (for me) that contains such albums as Number of the Beast, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath...well, name your poison. This may even be a top fiver for me. The below review references OMII, and frankly? It's better than that (for me). It's story is told with such class, such literacy, that I can't begin to say. The most astonishing thing is that it really could have been a recipe for disaster. Throwing something like the Count of Monte Cristo/Christ thing into the metal blender is just like asking for trouble on the cheese meter. But these guys pull it off. Understated, yet heavy, emotional brilliance Mark my words, that new Priest album, for instance, is a similar recipe for disaster......I mean, Nostrodamus? They might as well do a metal "opera" about monster trucks. I have major doubts about that one... Sorry.....anyhoo, this review from the Net says it better than i ever could. Again, Christ O is one of the greats. An amazing metal masterpiece.
Oh, and last by me, thanks Bryant, I feel like I owe ya big for raving this one up. According to the counter in my iTunes, I've listened to this album 57(!!) times...and frankly, it still sound exciting and new.
Review by Thom Jurek
The bottom line for those who don't already know: Vanden Plas rocks. This German progressive metal band is disciplined, with excellent musicians who understand complexity and know how to employ it without it getting in the way of fine songwriting, emotional transference, and ultimately the kind of hair-raising excess that makes heavy metal such an enduring genre. Christ 0 is a concept album about a serial killer (the album is titled after him) and the man (Inspector X) who seeks to capture him. Should one find that concept to be clichéd, stop reading right now. These nine songs reflect a manner of composition, sublime taste, bone-crunching power, and breathtaking dynamics, along with an excellent use of texture and sonics not heard since Queensrÿche's classic Operation: Mindcrime. This is the story of a man betrayed, stripped of everything he loves, and convicted of a crime he did not commit -- and who ultimately loses his own humanity. The man who pursues him must confront the very things in himself that keep him obsessed with his prey. Musically, this is where the line between symphonic metal and the classic sounds of early (In Trance period) Scorpions, Dio, Queensrÿche, Judas Priest, and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis becomes blurred. Andy Kuntz is a singer who doesn't have to shriek or growl, because he is a trained vocalist. His songwriting partners, keyboardist Gunter Werno and guitarist Stephen Lill (whose brother Andreas is the band's drummer, and who joins with bassist Torsten Reichert to make a grand rhythm section), understand his mind and vision. They have the musical prowess to explore the margins of their genre, creating lyrical backdrops for Kuntz. The songs meld and blend with ease, an unholy grace, and a sense of good and evil fighting one another -- and the outcome does not become cut and dried or clear to the listener until the very end. Christ 0 is a journey into darkness through light and perhaps ending there, but reviewing single tracks would lessen it somehow, as it is a whole. It is the finest moment yet from a band that relentlessly ventures into new places with its material, expanding the genre and offering something other than the usual tropes associated with metal. The bonus track, "Gethsemane" from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar, is a moving, pulsing, barely restrained wild animal of a track. Perhaps they should take on the whole thing someday -- they could pull it off without effort. Vanden Plas are easily the finest progressive metal band out there. Hopefully Americanski audiences will connect with this one. Seek it out.
