General Zod
Ruler of Australia
I spun that twice last night. This feels more nuanced than anything they've done in the past. It's an impressive release and a Top 10 contender for sure.
Within Temptation - Hydra
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AngraRULES
Member
10/10 from Bravewords. This review is worth reading:
Nothing sums up the newest BEHEMOTH album, The Satanist, more than the opening inhale to the song 'In The Absence Ov Light'; and I'm not talking a death growl or pig squeal type inhale - I mean a true, exasperated fucking inhale. The kind of inhale one would take after being pulled from beneath frigid waters, life extinguished, only to be suddenly resuscitated, lungs filling with air; filling with the essence of life. This is the inhale of a man being given a second chance around on this mortal coil. We couldn't rightfully dissect The Satanist without taking into consideration the recent travails of frontman, Adam 'Nergal' Darski. Having spent the past few years battling, and conquering, a life-threatening illness, Darski, the warrior, both on and off stage, has taken that energy, that esprit for life, and, quite literally, channelled it directly into The Satanist. Nergal, in an effort to memorialize and pay respect to the disease that nearly claimed him, had his blood embodied into the album artwork, composed by Russian symbolist painter, Denis Forkas. As a symbolic gesture, there is nothing more fitting - the elemental, organic, sanguine fluid of both nature and music coursing through impassioned veins, coalescing in a sacrament of biological euphony never before achieved in extreme music. Looking beyond the symbolism, The Satanist strikes a harmonious balance in its beautiful composition. Where tension once ruled, there now exists a confident air of subtlety and brutality. This new approach is practised throughout the entirety of the album, particularly evident in stand-out tracks 'Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer', 'Ben Sahar', and, of course, the aforementioned 'In The Absence Ov Light'. The Satanist certainly has a meaning far more abyssal and profound than what its title might outwardly imply. Whatever that is, only Nergal knows. It was he who stood on that precipice, staring down into purgatory, into everlasting fires. It was he who scorned the allure of Satan, for his time had not come.
It is a brilliant release, and a contender for Album of the Year. I know it already.
General Zod
Ruler of Australia
I think this line sums it up best.
I think as all great band evolve, they reach a point at their apex where their artistic vision has been fully realized and they can approach songwriting from a perspective devoid of outside influence. At this point, Behemoth isn't try to write Black Metal, Death Metal or Black/Death Metal, they're purely writing Behemoth songs. They sound perfectly at ease in their skin.
I can't wait to see them live again. They may just be my favorite live band.
I think as all great band evolve, they reach a point at their apex where their artistic vision has been fully realized and they can approach songwriting from a perspective devoid of outside influence. At this point, Behemoth isn't try to write Black Metal, Death Metal or Black/Death Metal, they're purely writing Behemoth songs. They sound perfectly at ease in their skin.
I can't wait to see them live again. They may just be my favorite live band.
Harvester
The Promoter
Ok..enough with the manly-man metal talk in this thread. Please go back to the puffter topic at hand and start a new thread to sling goats.
AeonicSlumber
srs
- Aug 14, 2008
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haha what are you, British?
>looks back at own post history and sees the word "wank" shows up a million times
uhh
TENTH DREAMER DECEIVER
Halcyon Way Sufferer
- Jan 7, 2002
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AngraRULES
Member
edgeofthorns
24 Hours Ago...
I knew that Hydra would receive an ass kickin' here. I happen to be one of the people that think Within Temptation is incapable of releasing a bad album at this point. Yes, they've strayed away from the "folky" goth metal of Mother Earth, but they make their new, more commercial sound work, imo. I like Hydra and will be buying it during my next wave of CD purchases.
~Brian~
~Brian~
General Zod
Ruler of Australia
The same could be said for Duran Duran, but you don't see me posting about them in here.
While I do miss the days of Mother Earth, Within Temptation is still one of my faves and Hydra is a fantastic listen. It's hard to think of a band that writes better hooks than these guys, and Sharon den Adel is in a league of her own.
delainnation
Member
I got the 2 disc bonus album so I will just recap the first disc 10 songs. Songs that I like the most, Let Us Burn, because it is what I expect WT to sound like. This song would have fit on the Unforgiving album, may even be a leftover song. Dangerous, because it gives us hope maybe one day, we will get a WT, Amaranthe duet, Paradise, because it is a historical, dream duet that we have always waited for, Silver Moonlight, because it is a gracious nod to the classic sound of WT on albums such as The Silent Force. Covered by Roses, for the awesome guitar riff. And my favorite song on the whole album...........Whole World is Watching!!!!!! This is a great and versatile mix of styles for WT showing us they can pull off any style they attempt and master it. I would call it an experimental album because of all of the different styles. There is something here for everybody to enjoy. I give it a 9 out of 10.
KingsGene
God of Thunder
I'm a late comer to this album having just purchased from eMusic. I must say again that I find myself really enjoying this release much like "The Unforgiven". I don't know much of their earlier work, so I don't know what progression they've made since the early days. I can imagine that if it's much different from this, then I would probably be bummed about the change. But, I'm not in that camp, so I'll just happily say "more please" and hope to see them this fall.
Exploding Ned
Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by TribunalRecords View Post
Didn't Evanescence do this already? Like, bring this exact style to radio, right? Granted their roots where not as deep into this genre as Within Temptation, but they still made it there first.
I guess herein is the difference between U.S. and Euro radio. Yeah, the very top of commercial FM in Europe has pop all over it, but at least over there The Gathering's first 2-3 major albums did get some decent airplay back in the day... and that may have been the first epic/goth with heavy guitars on Euro radio. But yeah I guess here Evanescence may have been first to hit the upper areas of U.S. charts with that. As for W.T., maybe this could scale those heights, but first we'd need U.S. radio programmers to have less hangups. As it is, it seems U.S. radio allows itself to go in every direction EXCEPT the one you describe. Blame that on the stigma caused by U.S. radio program directors.
Originally Posted by TribunalRecords View Post
Didn't Evanescence do this already? Like, bring this exact style to radio, right? Granted their roots where not as deep into this genre as Within Temptation, but they still made it there first.
I guess herein is the difference between U.S. and Euro radio. Yeah, the very top of commercial FM in Europe has pop all over it, but at least over there The Gathering's first 2-3 major albums did get some decent airplay back in the day... and that may have been the first epic/goth with heavy guitars on Euro radio. But yeah I guess here Evanescence may have been first to hit the upper areas of U.S. charts with that. As for W.T., maybe this could scale those heights, but first we'd need U.S. radio programmers to have less hangups. As it is, it seems U.S. radio allows itself to go in every direction EXCEPT the one you describe. Blame that on the stigma caused by U.S. radio program directors.
Exploding Ned
Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by edgeofthorns View Post
I knew that Hydra would receive an ass kickin' here. I happen to be one of the people that think Within Temptation is incapable of releasing a bad album at this point.
So, would it be a stretch to say you're in the 'No, I Mean I'm REALLY REALLY Not A W.T. Fan' collective?
Originally Posted by edgeofthorns View Post
I knew that Hydra would receive an ass kickin' here. I happen to be one of the people that think Within Temptation is incapable of releasing a bad album at this point.
So, would it be a stretch to say you're in the 'No, I Mean I'm REALLY REALLY Not A W.T. Fan' collective?
KingsGene
God of Thunder
WITHIN TEMPTATION'S SHARON DEN ADEL - "IN THE END, WHEN YOU FINISH AN ALBUM YOU ALWAYS HAVE CERTAIN THINGS THAT YOU NEVER CHANGE"
Journalist Greg Prato spoke with vocalist Sharon den Adel of Dutch symphonic rockers Within Temptation about the band's Hydra album, duetting, her favorite songwriters, and the stories behind several songs.
Talking about the Hydra album, Sharon states: "Well, in the past when we started writing music, we had a really clear vision of how we wanted to sound, and we had a strict regime, like, 'Okay, it should be sounding like this and this and this'. And somehow we thought also that we could only be inspired by similar bands, or we had to really focus on that. So the way of writing was totally different than how we did Hydra, because with The Heart Of Everything, which is two albums back, we really felt like we had finalized a symphonic vision that we had of how we should sound as a band. We didn't think we could ever go over that, and we didn't want to repeat ourselves.
So we thought, let's try a different way of songwriting. Have no boundaries at all, no strict regime of how we should sound. Let's let that go, because that was such a pressure for us: we had this barrier already before we started that we could only move within boundaries in a certain way. And when that was gone, it just opened up so many new doors.
In the end we still sounded like Within Temptation, but then more diverse. And I think it started already with The Unforgiving album, that we started writing from different perspectives and were inspired by different kinds of music. But in the end, when you finish an album you always have certain things that you never change.
We felt like, we'll write whatever we like and in the end we'll see what does come on the album and doesn't come on the album. I think coming from that perspective, it feels like you're a new band again, like a young band starting to write their first album. And then you have so much inspiration. That was the same kind of feeling, after so many years, after so many albums, that gives so much energy and so many new ideas. That's the way we're going to write for the future, as well."
Journalist Greg Prato spoke with vocalist Sharon den Adel of Dutch symphonic rockers Within Temptation about the band's Hydra album, duetting, her favorite songwriters, and the stories behind several songs.
Talking about the Hydra album, Sharon states: "Well, in the past when we started writing music, we had a really clear vision of how we wanted to sound, and we had a strict regime, like, 'Okay, it should be sounding like this and this and this'. And somehow we thought also that we could only be inspired by similar bands, or we had to really focus on that. So the way of writing was totally different than how we did Hydra, because with The Heart Of Everything, which is two albums back, we really felt like we had finalized a symphonic vision that we had of how we should sound as a band. We didn't think we could ever go over that, and we didn't want to repeat ourselves.
So we thought, let's try a different way of songwriting. Have no boundaries at all, no strict regime of how we should sound. Let's let that go, because that was such a pressure for us: we had this barrier already before we started that we could only move within boundaries in a certain way. And when that was gone, it just opened up so many new doors.
In the end we still sounded like Within Temptation, but then more diverse. And I think it started already with The Unforgiving album, that we started writing from different perspectives and were inspired by different kinds of music. But in the end, when you finish an album you always have certain things that you never change.
We felt like, we'll write whatever we like and in the end we'll see what does come on the album and doesn't come on the album. I think coming from that perspective, it feels like you're a new band again, like a young band starting to write their first album. And then you have so much inspiration. That was the same kind of feeling, after so many years, after so many albums, that gives so much energy and so many new ideas. That's the way we're going to write for the future, as well."
KingsGene
God of Thunder
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