Sonata Arctica - The Ninth Hour review

The release of Sonata Arctica’s ninth studio album The Ninth Hour is definitely a highlight of the year for me! I was a little nervous about this one. Their last two releases weren’t exactly worth their while on the long term, so I could only hope that my favorite Finns still knew how to create good music, But it is hard to remain skeptical once the first tunes of The Ninth Hour reach my ears, because Tony Kakko and his pack have done it again: the grin on my face while listening to this gem is inerasable!

De ball opens with the single Closer to an Animal; a no-nonsense song with a nice flow and very satisfying melodic twists and turns. Generally speaking a very relaxed start of the album. With the lyrics handling the theme of our role on this earth and what we do with it, it forms a nice introduction to the subject of The Ninth Hour, that mostly deals with environmental pollution and other fucked up things we do to our planet and the stubbornness of mankind that refuses to do anything about it.

But thankfully this album is not all about the big mean people species. Life is a merry song that invites to lalala along with it. No heavy lyrics, just a good old sing-along chorus about living life and singing with friends. How happy can a song get? A little cheesy here and there, but hey, you gotta have a good guilty pleasure. Or as Tony himself admits: “It is a dumb thing to say but the fact won’t wane away.” And that, my friends, is the truth!

Tony Kakko’s sarcastic and satiric traits are exposed in Fairytale. Sonata’s reaction to the current presidential elections in America. When it comes to the music, there are a lot of elements that will please a lot of fans from the old days. A nice and speedy pace, a starring part for Henrik Klingenberg and his keytar and a chorus that digs in your brain in no time and stays there.

Nightwish’ Troy Donockley has been called tot the stage to add his part to the bittersweet We Are What We Are.  And indeed, while listening tot the intro you would get the impression that you’re listening to a Nightwish song, but the characteristic sound of Elias Viljanen strumming his guitar tells us who this song belongs to. Another anthem for the improvement of the world with some very honest but tough lessons about us as a species.

The notorious stalker saga, up till now composed of  the classics The End of this Chapter, Don’t Say A Word, Caleb and Juliet gets another installment with Till Death Done Us Apart. It reminds a lot of Juliet and it has these fantastic, maniacal elements

“Ding-dong ding-dong, and everything did go wrong…”

Tony shows his psycho traits once again and Sonata delivers another impressive chapter. One of the more complex songs on the album, with quite some heavy parts and genius melodies.

After their debuting hit Fullmoon we finally have another werewolf song, titled Among the Shooting Stars. Though pretty entertaining, I think it is one of the lesser songs on an otherwise genius album. Quite a safe recipe for Sonata’s doing and it kind of just rumbles along low and slow.

Rise a Night is another small party with all the good stuff of old and new Sonata styles. Clearly written to shut up all those crybabies that are whining for years for the return of the double kick drum. They certainly succeeded in this, with a song that is driven by Tommy Portimo’s fiery feet and Elias’ blazing fingers. Throw in a keyboard-guitar battle solo, and a pounding breakdown near the end, and Sonata proves to be headbang worthy again!

Fly, Navigate, Communicate is a very interesting two-headed beast. In the first half it’s not really clear in what direction this song wants to go. It builds up with a mellow melody as base, with the occasional drum peaking here and there. Halfway the whole thing explodes into a power party where Tony even shows of some quite brutal screams. Other than that, Tony comes chiming out of all the corners of his vocal range and that only adds to the wild brilliance of this remarkable song.

After the touching What Did You Do In The War Dad from previous album Pariah’s  Child, the theme of war and children continues with Candle Lawns. A moving story about two friends and veterans of which one leaves the other to learn his son to live with what the war has taken from him. Daddy isn’t coming home, only a box containing a Purple Heart. Again beautifully and tragically displayed by Tony’s emotion filled voice, soaring guitars and lyrics that touch you in places rarely touched.   

The tragical and among Sonata fans so dearly loved story about a lighthouse keeper, a ship and a forbidden love gets a sequal with White Pearl Black Oceans II – By The Grace of the Ocean. Delightfully nostalgic when the song opens with the familiar tunes of the chorus of the Reckoning Night classic, and continues to greet the listener with the new stuff. Where part 1 ended with the death of the two protagonists, they are revived here for a second act. Though musically phenomenal, I think it’s a tad bit forced. Why bring back the dead for a cheesy happy ending while the blunt, dark ending of part 1 was exactly one of the thins that made the story so great?

If we look at the music there is no shame in calling it epic, and definitely on par with what we expect from such a loved saga, but a little on the slow side. The ghost of WPBO part 1 comes haunting trough the synths from time to time, and that gives a great atmosphere to this part as well. It winds and twists its way on the symphonic path that was paved by songs like Larger Than Life.

The festival ends where we started it: with On The Faultline, Closure to an Animal. The melody is mostly the same as the opening track, but this is a slower, more melancholic and personal version. Where Closer to an Animal dealt with humanity as a whole, this one has its focus on the individual person. A person that can’t seem to find a balance between life and love, and wanders lonely on the fault line in between. The added echo effect on Tony’s vocals underlines the words “Am I the only human here.” In a very smart, artistic way. It also has this peculiar Queen or David Bowie-like feel to it.

A sad sounding whistle puts an end to The Ninth Hour. An album that really pleasantly surprised me with depth, chaos and brilliance that Sonata seemed to have lost the last few years.

The mix, again done by bass player Pasi Kauppinen, still has room for improvement. With his last endeavor we had Tony floating loosely from the rest, but with this one the vocals often drown under a thick layer of bass and guitars. But this is not nearly as big as a nuisance as his previous works.  

But still, we can once again rejoice. There is something for everybody on this album, and you can’t possibly with for a better effort to satisfy all the fans. Really their best record since The Days of Grays, and feels like the missing link between all Sonata Arctica’s different era’s. The Ninth Hour will certainly stand the test of time with better scores than the previous two! This die-hard fan, in any case, is greatly satisfied.  

interview with Temperence's Marco Pastorino

It’s been only two years since you guys released your first album, and now you have already released your third. Things are going pretty fast for you guys! Is there a specific reason for that or do you just like making albums? It's just about our continuous flow of ideas. Me and Giulio, at this point, have this kind of involvement in what we do that it's a little bit crazy, so we meet sometimes to mix up our ideas and when we think to have a certain amount of material to make it listen to the each other, we close ourselves in the studio 24 hours a day with a few hours break in order to sleep a little bit or eat something. This goes on for some days until we have an album defined at 99% of its entirety. We of course are exhausted after that because it's a process that subtracts energies: we take everything we have inside, maybe created in a range of a few weeks inside of us, we take it out and make it "shine" and this is the result. Up till now you have released an album every year, with Temperance in 2014, Limitless in 2015 and now this one. Are you continuing on this rate or do we have to wait for the next album a bit longer this time? I think not, even though we don't like to force ourselves. We didn't think about a next album to be done in a few months after the first one and the same thing happened with The Earth Embraces Us All. It's all about a natural evolution of things. We have a really wide setlist now, rich of different kind of sounds in order to deal really with a tour or some concerts with different styles in a unique way. With The Earth Embraces Us All you started to do a lot more daring things than in your previous albums. Though both albums were great, they were quite simple and straight to the point. What made you feel the time was right to bring out the big guns this time? Growing up both as people and as musicians, each individual person keeps on with its own personal evolution and the album reflects exactly what we are today. It's an album that is both more introspective and more mature talking about the lyrics, the themes are closer to what we live in our lives. We have this loads of emotions that hit us when we don't expect them and this album unearths tons of shades that maybe have been dozed off before: a lot of melodic openings of particular instruments, the use of choir that are less conventional in the metal field, literally quotes more or less known. There is a lot to offer that we want to give really more. It's like we want to offer our listeners a really rich dish without equal things without falling into the exasperation of course. Temperance is what it is because it combines different genres, with electronic music and melodic metal being the most prominent, but this album had some very quirky surprises. In the songs A Thousand Places and Advice from a Caterpillar we are suddenly surprised with smooth jazz. Because… why not? You said right, "why not?"  A Thousand Places is personally one of those songs with a kind of structure that I would have like to conceive before; maybe that time hasn't  arrived for different reasons or maybe we haven't been ready, but now we are. And all of its aspects fills of emotion each part of the songs and in this case the use of soprano sax was really natural. We have this line of violin with which we wanted to close the opener giving it a clearly romantic and calm cut but then we thought "Why don't we develop more this sequence of notes, giving a new restart with a particular flavour?" and here it was. Instead "Advice From A Canterpillar" is considered by me as the musical insanity by me and Giulio gathered together in an individual song starting from the intro almost like Toto and counterpoints by big band to the verses with this 80s flavour and with that mid tempo, the first choral stop, the anthem restart, the choir and then, as you were saying, the jazz part. You should know that 7-8 minutes song has been written by the two of us in something like 45 minutes in studio in its entirety I mean. If you listen to the pre production of that song, you can already listen to the orchestras, the 10-12 continuous voices. It was an unique experience. I think that we collapsed for exhaustion after finishing this 45 minutes of insanity haha Could you walk us through each song on the new album, explaining the meaning and thoughts behind it, when it comes to both the lyrics and the music. Also in this case, as in Limitless, Chiara wrote the lyrics, except for the ending suite maybe starting from a specific idea or making herself dragged into themes we have already imagined. "A Thousand Places" is like the beginning of a journey through a lot of places, new and emotional ones, where you can find a lot of culture and in this case a lot of music styles. "At The Edge  Space" is about  how each of us could be useful for every cause but not essential if we think about the entirety of the universe  and how it could be something with incomparable dimensions while we are like a tiny point in a little planet in a little galaxy. If you think in this way, you could understand that we fall down day by day for tiny little things. "Unspoken Words", as the title says, is the song in which all of us can be identify in when you can't manage to express what you are feeling inside, not only in personal relationships but also in the artistic way or in the aspirations each of us should have. "Empty Lines" is about those battles, maybe more mental, we can't defeat and we try to make it arise writing a song for example. "Maschere" is maybe the more introspective song, also because of the italian lyrics, and it's about that kind of confusion inside of us that makes us blind about our steps or the started road. "Haze" is about the classic no-day where everything seems not be working, waking up on the wrong foot. "Fragments Of Life" is one of those songs that mantain the same title we used in the preproduction phase, it's a love song through the beautiful moments of life. "Revolution" is becoming one of our  more determined anthem song in our live shows, the lyrics link all of us with a very effective incipit " Advice from A Caterpillar " deals with the story of Alice In Wonderland  through some characters, a lot of atmosphere and this crazy almost insane vision as in Carroll's work. "Change The Rhyme" is about love again underling the fact that the best is yet to come as the seal of our lives where news arrive day by day ready to make our hearts beat. As I was telling before, the last one "Restless Ride" was wrote by Giulio at 100& of its entirety, lyrically talking too, starting from his love for Interstellar and imagining all the humanity ready to take everything and leave for another planet dividing the song in different parts, some more atmospheric and breathtaking and other heavier and more enthralling. I would like to underline for example the quote from the Bible, specifically from The Apocalypse from Giovanni, at the mid of the song. It gives such a theatrical flavour to the song, something between the sacred and the profane. So far you have shared the stage with big artists like Rhapsody, Nightwish, Within Temptation, to name a few.  Which bands or artists would you like to go on tour with next? And who is your favorite band to tour with? Nightwish is one of my favourite bands at the moment of course also with the arrival of Floor Jansen in the band. I have always loved them but now it's like they have reached the top of the top. Talking about real tour, the one with Rhapsody gave us a lot of emotions and experiences that we will keep inside of us. Who would we like to tour with? That's a question no one has ever asked me .I will go against the known names and I will tell you Leprous, for me they are one of the best in the nowadays progressive modern scene. Speaking of which, last June you played on Rock in Roma alongside Nightwish, Epica and Apocalyptica. Those are pretty huge names! Seems to me that Temperance is not that curious little band anymore. Do you feel the same? We are still a little band compared to the band you have mentioned but we want to focus on the present and try to give more and expand our fan base step by step.  We have been existing since 3 years and we had the chance to play almost 100 concerts around Europe and America. I would like to expand more and meet new people in every place thanks to this new album. Is there going to be a The Earth Embraces Us All tour? Yes, we are defining some shows for the next months and we are a very wide planning for 2017. At the moment we have announced  some italian shows, a minitour as headliner in Spain where we are coming back after the lucky gigs with Rhapsody. There will be more dates confirmed in the nearly future. How, do you think, will your musical style develop in the future? It's a very asked question but we don't know which direction we will take with our next works. We don't want to repeat ourselves of course but keep on with our music evolution.  Our basic trademark will remain of course as it's part of us but we don't want to keep out anything. For example, in this "The Earth Embraces Us All" we totally abandoned the growl and scream pars because we simply didn't feel the necessity to insert them at all. Maybe when we will start a hypothetical fourth album, we will be back to our steps and we will use it again. Who knows. This is the beauty of this band, no obligation Any last words for the Dutch fans, and those watching on my youtube channel? Cheers to the guys of Wings of Death and to all of our Dutch friends that have been following us. We can't wait to come to your beautiful places!

Temperance - The Earth Embraces Us All

original review on https://www.wingsofdeath.net/Temperance-The-Earth-Embraces-Us-All

For over two years, Temperance has brightened up my playlist with their fantastic electro-metal sound. Their self- titled debut as well as their second album Limitless keeps on entertaining me. Now the time has come for their third album, and so it appears that Temperance releases a new album every year. This, however, doesn’t affect the quality, as their latest studio wonder The Earth Embraces Us All shows. An album that really fits the description ‘third time’s the charm’, because now Temperance really shows what they are made of, and they shake off the newbie image for good with an album that is filled with fantastical composing, challenging quirks and wonderful melodies.

We open with A Thousand Places, and it lets us know from the off that this album is taking a more serious approach than the previous ones. Where both albums started quite happy-joy-joy-ish, this song has a tense feeling, but despite this change, the atmosphere as a whole stays delightfully recognizable. Up till the last part of the song at least, where the glorious pounding makes way for a jazzy ending. With that added saxophone it almost feels like a sitcom intro. Talking about contrast! One thing is for sure: Temperance’s got balls!

The intro of The Edge of Space is almost exactly the same to Nightwish’ Ghost Love Score choir, but now as an inimitable Temperance version.  Thankfully they do put their own stamp on the rest of the song. An outstanding sing-a-long chorus and lightning speed drums drive this one. Unspoken Words has a folky twist to it, and is the kind of earworm that Temperance is known for. Empty Lines brings out the disco elements and reminds the listener that Temperance has ingenious ways of combining metal and electro.

Maschere is Temperance’s first song sung in Italian, and it’s good that it is, because if the language didn’t change this song would have become more of a standard ‘filler’’. Still, Chiara sounds as lovely as always when singing in her mother tongue, and Maschere becomes a nice, not too shabby song after all.

Haze comes to blow my face off with a sort of trance-core intro, after which the song keeps pounding on with a chorus that is stripped of all excessive elements, but that makes a nice contrast as well. Fragments of Life is a delightful waltzy powerballad, but then again maybe to full of sounds to call it a real ballad. Still, one of the more relaxed songs on the album. It makes me long for a beautiful, small and humble ballad, which Temperance still fails to deliver up till now. Come on guys, you’re Italians, give me some romance!   

Revolution comes with a lyric video, and also invites to sing along loudly. Chiara’s high and full opera vocals are back, and that’s a perk she may use more often, if I had any say in it. An Arabic twist gives the song a boost halfway, and saves it from the ‘standard single material’ judgment.

The first epic on this album is Advice from a Caterpillar (Alice in Wonderland reference?) and sounds delightfully fairytale-like at some points. A violin is put in here and there to give it something extra, and when it comes to atmosphere it kinda goes all over the place.  After a sweet vocalizing part, we are suddenly treated with another smooth-jazz bit – talking about random – but that also flows back in a grandiose manner to good old pounding.

Change the Rhyme is a bittersweet intermezzo ‘reflection of life’ semi-ballad before we really turn our focus to the last epic, The Restless Ride. Well, it sure makes me restless, as it seems to be a collection of smaller songs that has been stuck together.  But it is the parts in between that make this song worthy of the title; fucking epic! Chiara and Marco each take their turn in the vocal department, and we’re sometimes treated with multivocal goodness (always a great thing!), sweet, slower moments with a piano as protagonist and a heavenly piece of choir that makes every hair on my body stand upright. Aside from that piece of musical heaven, it kinda stays a ragtag bunch of elements. This makes the song quite phenomenal, but the big picture is not quite clear because of it. De speed and melody go all over the place, but manage to find their place quite nicely at the end that still gives the song a satisfactory ending.

It may be ‘only’ their third album, but one that forms a milestone for Temperance. It’s a huge leap in the right direction in comparison to the last two, that were already magnificent in their own ways, and The Earth Embraces Us All does provide a really high standard for whatever this band is up to in the future. This is really their best record so far, but there is still space to exceed it, though they will have to give it a whole lot to achieve that.

Temperence, I congratulate you, The Earth Embraces Us All, is for now, an astounding record! 

Secret Rule - Machination

Secret Rule, a group of three Italians, a Dutchman and a Finn, came to my attention trough previously mentioned Finn, who is one of my favorite musicians. Henrik Klingenberg of Sonata Arctica (did we expect anything else?)

Famous Dutch person on this line up is Sander Zoer (Ex-Delain), and it’s up to those well known names, along with the characteristic vocals of Angela Di Vincenzo to bring the still fairly unknown Secret Rule to new heights.  And also up tot their second album, that’s now awaiting to be played on my Itunes; Machination

Though I can probably name quite some bands that Secret Rule obviously draws their inspiration from, they are certainly not a copycat of anyone, and keep on doing their own thing. This is thanks to Angela, who has her own distinct style of singing. Notable though are the Amaranthe/Nemesea-ish ‘modern’ elements that continue to show up, and with that the genre of what is apparently now known and ‘modern female fronted metal’ gains a new addition to it’s list of top artists, but now one that actually knows how to make some real noise. Still they manage to apply those elements in quite a unique way. Like the quirky bits in Your Trap that – ironically enough – contain some trappy vibes. (for all you uncultured swine’s who never ventured beyond metal genre’s, trap is a sub genre of hiphop/rap.)

Talking about irony: I find it quite funny that a song called Foolish Daisy contains the darkest grunts we have heard with Secret Rule so far. Talking about contrast!

Throughout the album there is this dark vibe that I somehow cannot really place.  The first couple of songs have sort of a generic feel, but with the coming of the song Dolls this vibe takes more and more center stage (as well as – finally – Henkka’s characteristic style of playing)

There isn’t really a long epic song on this album, but The Image comes tantalizingly close to that epic feel that is required of such a song. Especially in this track, Angela shows of everything here voice has to offer and so this song is now marked as my favorite of the whole album. Though really interesting and entertaining, this album is one that you can’t and actually don’t have to say much about. A typical case of where the music speaks for itself and in all its down-to-earth feel still comes across as pretty damn sweet!

No song is the same and this rapidly makes Machination a rollercoaster of styles and makes the feeling as a whole a bit hard to grasp. Even more reason to replay this album quite more often and let everything pass my ears once more.

Still this is a pretty great album al together, but I do think that I do the songs more justice by listening to them individually. So I’ll put it in my playlist and then I let myself be surprised by all the hidden gems that Secret Rule has scattered across the album, because I’m sure to find quite some of those!