Lamb Of God - 512

Lamb Of God, the well known American groove/metalcore band have released yet another song of their upcoming and highly anticipated album: VII: Sturm und Drang that is scheduled for official release on the 24th of July this year. Earlier in May, I have reviewed their 1st single of the album "Still Echoes" with the marvelous team of Rock Era Magazine. This time, I'm doing '512' here.

Randy Blythe, the frontman of the band speaks about how prison inspired the song with the Rolling Stone.
"You cannot have the same mentality as the normal guy living on the streets in prison, You undergo a radical mental and emotional shift when you go into prison" 

'512' is probably best described as the gist of Randy's imprisonment behind the bars of the Czech republic. Heavy pounding on the drums, suspenseful guitar melodies with Randy's clean vocals such as those you might hear in songs like 'Reclamation' from their previous album 'Wrath' mark the intro of the song. Right until the groovy guitar riffs start playing and the atmosphere of the song is pretty much set. The drumming takes a shift towards the metalcore-ish style and soon you feel the utmost need to move your neck along with the drumming and the riffing of the song. Combined with deep growls, the song itself sends out a mad vibe. The guitar melodies provide somewhat of a hypnotic tone or what may be described as the proper atmosphere of solitary confinement.

The lyrical content of the song is as visual as possible, describing what it feels to be imprisoned. The bars, the guards, the haunting feeling of guilt. And how you can't say something wrong else it would be used against you let it be by guards or other inmates. All you have is your thoughts and the gloomy ambience that just keeps on building with no end in sight.

The guitar solo is a bit unorthodox to the band's previous work, the double bass pedals at the beginning, followed by guitar shredding on the same pace with a time shift in the middle of the whole thing. Which is often not the way the band creates their solos. But that does not make it any less good, on the contrary, it is very accepted possibly to everyone, not just metal heads and the band's fans.

Madness is what awaits anyone who falls behind bars, and Randy's part near the end of the song when he growls "My hands are painted red." and then repeats the word red four times more, pretty much sends out the right crazy/mad vibe to complete the song. The growls growing higher in every time to the extent of becoming somewhat of a screeching voice. It's actually remarkable.

You can listen to the song on the Youtube video down below. Also, you can preorder the album from here.

Ahmed D. Essam.

 

Battle Beast, The New Monster In The North.

Battle Beast is a female fronted Finnish heavy metal band from Helsinki.
They started playing together in 2008, the two guitarists "Anton Kabanen", "Juuso Soino" and the drummer, "Pyry Vikki", knew each other and had played together before. Joined by "Nitte Valo" the vocalist and the keyboardist, "Janne Björkroth" after some auditions along with "Eero Sipilä".
They won 2 awards significantly big for metal bands.
First, they won the Wacken Metal Battle in Finland in the year 2010 then they won the Radio Rock Starba award.
They rose to fame quite fast accordingly and they started working out on their debut release that came out in the year 2011 with the name of "Steel".
With their prior single releases "Show Me How To Die" and "Enter The Metal World" that came out as a huge success, it was clear by then that the band has some great potential.

"Steel" was an exemplary heavy metal release, having it as their debut sure gave this band a lot more fame.
The music consisted of many layers created by the 2 guitarists, bassist and keyboardist.
Strong and well coordinated heavy metal riffs that you can't help but to headbang to.
Catchy choruses influenced by the melodic nature of the Finnish lands.
Super fast shredding that takes your heart up and down on a roller coaster of emotions with lots of accidentals and scaled feelings.

Soon, the band started touring as an opening act for Nightwish, a strong well known band from their country, Finland.
It was a success for both bands.

In 2012, Nitte Valo, the lead vocalist announced that she will be departing the band for family issues.
Soon after her departure came the news of the new lead singer, Noora Louhimo from Tampere, Finland.
They started touring again but this time they supported another Finnish power metal band, Sonata Arctica.
They started working on their new release after touring, which was set to be self titled.

On April 2013, the band released a single entitled "Into The Heart Of Danger"
It came out a little bit pop-ish.

Yes, it had the main components of a kickass heavy metal song, but it also had some new influences.

Their album came out later in May 2013, the intro track for the album called "Let it Roar" was without a doubt a blast.
It is a sick track - in a good way - that had everything a heavy metal fan could ever hope for.

Hype, energy and speed! those were the main feelings of the song.
With the band's new vocalist, Noora. They rose to even higher heights.
Noora's vocals surely have a great wide range. That showed pretty clear in tracks like "Out Of Control" and "Black Ninja".
There's this groove in her voice that makes your heart ache of the desire to raise your fist in the air and sing along with her.
The guitarists of the band have upped their game by increasing the melodies and the layers of the music.
The album remains - to me at least - as their finest release.

The 21st of November 2014 marked the release of Battle Beast's new single "Touch In The Night" from their upcoming album "Unholy Savior" which was set to be released in January 2015.
To be fair, this was a really strange experience for me. The band's previously mentioned pop influences grew even further this time.
It dominated the atmosphere of that track. Hell, it felt like a commercial disco tune.
Music wise speaking, the band did a great job. The layers of the music were a lot less this time. You can notice the guitars playing in the background but they were not as strong as their previous releases.
But the variation of the notes was great and the solo was actually quite eargasmic and catchy.

In the 12th of December 2014, the band released a music video for one of their songs from the upcoming album called "Madness".
The music is well structured influenced by power metal generally.
Catchy choruses, strong riffs and shredding were present.
The only downside is the video itself.
The video presented the band playing amongst exotic dancers with the camera mainly fixed on their butts and cleavages.
Which is the oldest/cheapest commercial trick in the book to attract more viewers.
Wasn't exactly a smart move and it cost Battle Beast some fans along the way.
People need to understand that these are not our ethics.
We leave such tricks to the new age pop culture cause we look down upon them.
If you want music, you come to us. If you want sexual excitement, you can watch the videos of the new age pop music.


Then came the full length release.
Lionheart, the first track of the album contained such promising melodies and riffs.
Soon, you are tossed back into the heavy metal hype mode with the third track of the album "I Want The World... And Everything In It" which is to be honest my personal favorite of the album.
There were 2 songs that felt a little bit strange to me in the album aside from "Touch In The Night".
They were "Sea Of Dreams" and "Angel Cry".
They were truly strange to a heavy metal band, but that doesn't mean they were any less good than the rest of the album.
I encourage the band to pursue such influences and explore their sound with such attempts.
There was also some power metal influences in some songs like "Far Far Away" and "Speed And Danger".

So what I am trying to say here is:

Battle Beast is a strong promising heavy metal band that I believe is yet to explore their full potentials.

It is definitely a band that I would recommend to everyone to give them a listen.