RoundTable Review: Fleshgod Apocalypse – King

Album:  King

Label:  Nuclear Blast

Release Date:  5 Feb 2016

Songs:   22

Length:  1 Hour, 48 Minutes

Genre:  Symphonic Black/Death Metal

Studio Albums:  Oracles (2009); Agony (2011); Labyrinth (2013).

Location:  Italy

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Album Review: Black Crown Initiate – The Wreckage of Stars

Release Date: September 30th, 2014 on eOne Entertainment

Tracks: 10

Length: 53 minutes

Genre: Pushing limits in Progressive death metal

Location: Pennsylvania, US

Previous releases: Song of The Crippled Bull EP 2013

Recommended for fans of: Early Opeth, The Contortionist, Fallujah, Fleshgod Apocalypse

 

“…And we stand still, nothing worth changing, no cause to seek within our minds. There will never be another dawn here, a time where I’d feel, a time for taking and the path to freedom passed us by. Watch the waves and wither away here.”

Mik’s Top 100 Favourite Albums of All Time #30-26

A while ago, at the same time as Matt and Reggie, I posted my Top 100 All Time Favourite (Metal) Albums over at the forum The History of Metal on FB. It took a good amount of time and effort to put it together, but it was so much fun! My taste in metal is always changing, so the list will not always look the same. In fact, it’s already a bit different than it was when I first put it together and posted it on the forum seven months ago.

I tried to limit myself to three albums per band to make the list a little more diverse and interesting. I don’t really consider the ‘test of time’-factor when selecting what albums that will go on my list, instead I measure it by how strongly the album has affected me emotionally and how much/often it has helped me through both good and bad phases in my life. That’s why you can find quite a few newer releases among my favourites too.

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#30 In Mourning – The Weight of Oceans

This is the third In Mourning album in my list and their latest one, released last year. They keep getting better and better and ‘The Weight of Oceans’ is a very fine collection of songs. It includes my favourite In Mourning song, ‘Colossus’, possibly also one of the best songs written in the history of music, according to myself. The build up and groove in that one is amazing. ‘A Vow to Conquer The Ocean’ is another fantastic tune with great guitar work and the track titled ‘Celestial Tear’ is one of the most beautiful and emotional metal ballads I’ve ever heard. From the first listen, I found this to be a truly captivating album.

Reggie’s Top 25 Favorite Cover Songs #22 – Heartwork

The extreme style of Fleshgod Apocalypse is both enjoyable and hard to listen to at time…just due to the speed and intensity. I can typically listen to a band like this is short durations, but I enjoy those short bursts of insanity.  To give you a bit of history, Heartwork was the first Carcass song I ever heard and it made me an instant fan of the band.  Unfortunately they didn’t last, but their music lives on and is now being covered which tells me they have an influence on newer generation metal bands.  Fleshgod Apocalypse is ball-busting Technical Death Metal (or whatever you want to call it).They did a great job of infusing their brand of madness to make Heartwork their own, but also ensured it is easily recognizable to Carcass fans; job well done.  This actually made me pull out some old Carcass material for a revisit.  And yes, I do like the older material as well.  Not sure if it’s true, but we could see a new Carcass release in 2013.

Matt’s(Atleastimhousbroken) Honorable Mentions of 2011

Man, what can I say?  2011 has been a hell of a year.  First things first, since this will be my final post of 2011, I just want to thank all our readers old and new for tuning in to Metal State.  The site has grown so much over the past year and I’m honored to have all you readers and commenters here for the ride!!  And a thank you to my blogger in crime Reggie(Plantera7) for being a completely awesome blogging partner and brother in metal!!!!  And to everyone I say Happy Holidays and have a great start to your New Year, may it be great 2012 overflowing with copious amounts of Peace, chock full of Love, and tons upon tons of glorious Metal!!!

So onwards, like every other media website, Metal State will also be doing “Best of 2011” lists, I’m sure you’ve already seen/read a few of our other various “Best of” posts, and naturally we are waiting till the end to unleash the big daddy, the “Top 15 Albums of 2011”, which you will be able to read as soon as we return from our 2 week holiday break which will start today(we will still be around here and there to respond to comments, report any “huge” news, etc, but the regular posting will be on hiatus while we enjoy our holidays).  On Jan. 4, 2012 we will be posting our “Top 15 Best Albums of 2011”.  While making mine I had a bit of difficulty getting all the albums I really enjoyed honestly on the list, so I decided to make a mention of a handful of some great albums that ultimately didn’t make my personal Top 15.  Some factors I used when doing my list were how often I returned to the album, my initial reaction to it or how well it grew on me, and most importantly, how much I personally and unbiasedly enjoyed it.

The great thing about reading all of the year-end lists for me is being able to see some of my favorites get mentioned, and if there is someone who mentions a good amount of albums I like, chances are there are some great releases on their list that might be right up my alley.  Anyways, here are some of my honorable mentions in no particular order.  Enjoy!!! Peace Love and Metal!!!

Theme Thursday – Drumming

The heavy metal drummer is the official timekeeper of the band.  Often taking a back seat (literally) to the glitz and glam of the lead singer and guitarists, the drummer has perhaps the most difficult job…especially in metal.  First of all, they have to use all four limbs in rapid succession.  They must also use said limbs in an orderly fashion of some sort both of which require countless hours of practice and dedication.  An indirect benefit of being a drummer is that they get to A.  Sit down on the job and B. get a cardio-intense workout while sitting down on the job.

I wanted to take a Theme Thursday and focus some time and energy on the dude (or chick) sitting at the back of the stage somewhat perched up higher than the rest of the band.  Some drummers are well known for their drumming while others just drum and that’s cool too.  Some metal drummers have made a name for themselves in the business  so I wanted to take some time to recognize them, but also note some drummers that you may have not heard of that deserve some recognition.

Album Review- Fleshgod Apocalypse- Agony

Normally I don’t do this, but I am reviewing an album on a leak.  This week I came across a video for a song called “The Violation” by Italian metallers Fleshgod Apocalypse and it straight up blew me away, so I went and dug around on youtube and checked out some other songs off the album and was as equally impressed and couldn’t help myself getting my mitts on the leak and I have not been able to pull myself away from it for a nanosecond.  And just so you all know, I will definitely purchase it as soon as it is available without any hesitation, I just wanted to get my excitement for this album out there and start building a little buzz for a band that is sure to get a lot of attention this year and if they keep up the outstanding work that they are doing, for many years to come.

Agony is an album unlike anything I have ever heard before and Fleshgod Apocalypse have carved themselves a nice little niche that can simply be described as Orchestral Death Metal.  I’m sure you may think other bands such as Dimmu Borgir have explored this territory before, but them and the others never did it quite like this.  This is more bloodthirsty, more ferocious, it’s flat out ruthless.  With the exception of the opening and closing instrumentals this is a full force metal pulverizing and they beat the living daylights out of you with class.

Video of the Week- The Violation

So, I have never heard of this band until today which is strange since I make it a point to check out any metal band I can get my hands on that comes from Italy, mainly just for the fact that I live in Milan and I’m always curious about what kind of metal is being produced out here.  While the major part of popular Italian metal is in the Power metal realm with bands such as Rhapsody (of Fire) and Elvenking I was intrigued to hear that the next big thing in Death Metal was coming from the Big Boot.  The band I am talking about is Fleshgod Apocalypse and this video for “The Violation” is the first single off their upcoming album Agony to be released on August 9th(19th in Europe).  They are crafting a rather unique form of Death Metal that can simply be described as Symphonic/Orchestral Death Metal, and holy sh*t is it some intense and insane music that is superbly executed.  You will want to check that your speakers are at an appropriate volume(to 11 is preferable), there are plenty of priceless vases and/or other fragile and expensive objects around to aid the uncontrollable urge to start a mosh pit, and that your neighbors are home and are sitting down to a nice relaxing dinner previous to starting this video.