The Halo Effect - New Album 2023/2024

[ThePhobiac]

That's a collection of bands that sits firmly in the "metal that doesn't appeal to me" category. Stanne is the only bright spot here, especially if he does clean vocals primarily. I'll keep an open mind, however. For example, Gardenian was never really my thing, but 3 of their members plus Anders Friden put out a fantastic album in Passenger.

 

[The Grayfox]

I don't really expect it to sound anything like the bands the members are in to be honest. The bassist from Dimmu for instance is essentially a hired gun who has nothing to do with the songwriting, he just plays what they tell him to play. Vesa Ranta was a huge part of Sentenced for sure, but he's a very straight forward drummer, nothing terribly interesting. Markus will maybe influence it a little bit more than the others, but even so, I seriously doubt this will sound anything like Insomnium or Omnium Gatherum based on the description provided. Santeri does a little bit of writing for Amorphis, but either way, he's a pretty good keyboard player. That leaves Stanne and well... yeah he'll carry some weight.

 

[DE4life]

I'll judge purely based on what I hear. Typically I'm not really into gothic/doomy stuff, but I do have some exceptions - Tristania, On Thorns I Lay, Anubis, Poisonblack -so we'll see.

In terms of the band mixture involved, I obviously like DT a lot. Dimmu Borgir I don't mind - although I prefer their really old stuff like For All Tid and Stormblast. I don't listen to them too often but thought they were alright until 2003 or so, After that not so much.

Amorphis I have tried to like, but nothing grabs me whenever I attempt to listen to them. Generally their sound is just a bit too slow for me. I can appreciate why people enjoy them though, even if it isn't too my taste.

Omnium Gathering - another band that everyone seems to love, but I don't really get anything from listening to them. As @drawntoblack says it's almost like an AI-generated MDM band. Nothing wrong with what they're doing, just very structured in a way that makes it too predictable for my preferences.

Sentenced - yeah, they're a cool band, but not sure the drummer will be bringing a Sentenced-specific influence to the band, particularly if it's going to be gothic focused.

 

[The Grayfox]

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[Xpyro125]

You know what, I enjoyed that a lot more than I expected. I wish the guitars did more and that there was some sort of cool solo (Even a synth solo), but I’ll just chock this much up to lead single syndrome. It’s nothing world-shattering, but I’m definitely gonna buy it. It just felt good to listen to, so I’m happy.

Also, we got another “I don’t want to” in the chorus. It isn’t the starting line, and he says wield instead of feel, but it’s still funny to note.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Pleasantly surprised that Stanne cleanly sang the whole song. Impressive performance, too.

 

[Xpyro125]

Music video’s out now, haven’t watched it yet.

 

[drawntoblack]

Sounds quite a bit like 90s Paradise Lost. Nice chorus, Stanne sound good when he allows himself to slip into more poppy sounding melodies like this.
If I absolutely had to nitpick I'd say the bombastic accents before and after the last chorus were unnecessary and didn't fit all that well.

Curious to hear other songs they got, I know Vanhala is a huge Type O Negative fan so I'm hoping there will be a little bit of that injected there.

 

[A88]

Meh, pleasant but very generic.

Mostly impressed by the number of songs Stanne managed to write with "I don't want to" lyrics.

 

[ThePhobiac]

I like the vibe of that video. The band-members-slowly-congregating thing is a little silly to me, mostly because it reads like they're buying into their own hype too much. Halo Effect's Shadowminds video was like this for me, too. But I suppose a performance video might have been both out of place and not an easy or tasteful thing to pull off in a cemetery.

 

[eochaid]

It reminds me of Katatonia.

 

[The Grayfox]

It was about what I was expecting honestly. Very 80's goth inspired stuff. I like it.

 

[drawntoblack]

Meh, pleasant but very generic.

Mostly impressed by the number of songs Stanne managed to write with "I don't want to" lyrics.

I was reading a thread about the single on reddit and stumbled upon the same comment. I didn't mind it until now but now I can't unhear it.
Reddit is also quite upset that its not a melodeath supergroup, I don't know what those people expected.

Anyway I was checking out THE social media and saw pics from a tour they just wrapped. They had a replacement drummer as well, aside from Jensen on guitars. Had no idea Daniel wasn't playing live.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, definitely weird that Daniel is still out. Initially he was sitting out the Australia/New Zealand tour in November because of "personal reasons", but I don't believe this last run was part of that. On Instagram the band said that he's still taking personal time but will be back soon. Hopefully that's the case. With Jesper not touring and now Daniel sitting tours out, it's starting to feel like this thing is coming apart a little bit.

As far as Cemetery Skyline and the people on Reddit -- they were very clear up front that this wasn't a MDM project. Not their fault people can't read

 

[eochaid]

Jesper broke his arm a few months ago. Happily, they're again making and recording music for the next album but it looks as if it's going to be a calm process which is good.

As for Daniel, I follow him on insta and he's not been active. So the personal issues explanation seems to be true.

 

[drawntoblack]

Well, they've been a band for 5 years at this point. It wouldn't be that weird if they had a lineup change. From my understanding Niklas is the main driving force of the band anyway.

Shame about Jesper, didn't know about his arm. That dude just can't catch a break, be it voluntary or not.

 

[eochaid]

From their words and Instagram posts, it seems that all the music is being made by Niclas and Jesper together.

I think that they're at a point in life where a band is something else than a touring machine.

As Iong as they're happy it's ok whatever they do.

 

[The Grayfox]

They have a weird way of doing things. They have an album that's been done for almost a year, still no idea when it's coming out and they're working on more music?

 

[eochaid]

I think that they're currently working on that album that was supposed to be finished a year ago. Maybe there was some kind of understanding in Peter's words.

 

[drawntoblack]

It doesn't necessarily have to be "they" are the ones who got a weird way of doing things. Could be their label insisting on doing it like that, you want to be able to tour immediately when an album drops, even if its not a very long tour. And the main appeal of this band are its members and the supergroup (I don't really like that word) status it got.

So when people hear a new song and go to a show next week, they expect to see five ex In Flames dudes and not half of replacements. I imagine the label can't be happy with Jesper missing shows when he is arguably the biggest selling point of the band.

Again, I don't claim these are the actual reasons but I'm sure there is logic behind such an extensive waiting time. At the same time, if someone told me a year ago that THE would take a longer time to release a new album than Wintersun...