Monthly Archives: January 2013

Dropkick Murphys – Signed and Sealed in Blood

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Note: Our reviewer Dixit Sambyal thought it was time to put down that grim metal look for a moment and have some legit something non metal. Here he reviews the punk rock outfit Dropkick Murphys’ new album.

Album Cover

Album Cover

Tracklist:

  1. “The Boys Are Back” – 3:20
  2. “Prisoner’s Song” – 2:37
  3. “Rose Tattoo” – 5:06
  4. “Burn” – 2:39
  5. “Jimmy Collins’ Wake” (words written by Richard Johnson) – 2:59
  6. “The Season’s Upon Us” – 4:02
  7. “The Battle Rages On” – 2:17
  8. “Don’t Tear Us Apart” – 3:01
  9. “My Hero” – 3:10
  10. “Out on the Town” – 3:02
  11. “Out of our Heads” – 3:11
  12. “End of the Night” – 5:17

“The Boys are back and they are looking for trouble” is what they say
in the opening track and yeah the Boston based Celtic punks  are back
with Accordions, tin whistles, bagpipes , banjo, mandolin and what not
.

No more political issues , no social causes to discuss  and yeah, no story
telling this time like they did on their last album “Going Out in
Style”. Just some loud , fast(few mid tempo tunes too) and catchy
tunes which are fun to sing along .
“Signed and Sealed in Blood” released on 8th January is bit different
from band’s previous works as their music has evolved over the past
few years.

Powerful vocals and a loud chorus gives a realistic feel to the 2nd
track “Prisoner’s Song”, you can imagine the song, like the title suggested being sung out loud
in a prison.
Album’s lead single “Rose Tattoo” features Winston Marshall of Mumford
& Sons on banjo. It is the most remarkable track on the album .
“Jimmy Collins’ Wake” is an eulogy/tribute to James Joseph Collins
(January 16, 1870 – March 6, 1943),a professional baseball player  who
was also the first manager of the Boston Red Sox , then known as the
Boston Americans. He was the winning manager in the first-ever World
Series. Continue reading →

Heavy Prescription: Fractal Gates, Moth, V3CTORS

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Fractal Gates fg

1. Fractal Gates – Timeless (feat. Sotiris – Septic Flesh)

 

Fractal Gates from France has been a recent discovery for me and it seems that they’ve been tailor made to suit my musical palette. They play a brand of melodic death metal with a solid footing in the progressive side of the genre and yet manage to be instantly catchy. Lately they’ve been working towards a new album ‘Beyond the Self’ which is to be released by the French label Great Dane Records in February. Below is their first single titled Timeless. The video doubles as a lyric video and a normal music video, and is simply great to watch and so is the quality of the music accompanying it. Sotiris, guitarist from the symphonic death metal masters ‘Septic Flesh’, play a great solo in it as well. The production is top notch as well, courtesy Dan Swano. Lyrics compliment the track greatly, especially the part when the vocalist shouts “Reason shall rise! Once you soar in its sunset”..  Go ahead and click play!

Continue reading →

Hanging Garden – At Every Door

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LFR131_web

Tracklist:

1. Ten Thousands Cranes (6:21)
2. Ash And Dust (6:25)
3. Heigra (6:33)
4. Wormwood (6:23)
5. At Every Door (4:24)
6. The Cure (8:20)
7. Evenfall (4:53)
8. To End All Ages (10:33)

Hanging Garden… I bet ‘Babylon’ comes to mind. But it does seem as if band names keep getting ludicrous over time, but not be fooled!! I chanced upon the Finnish Hanging Garden while going through the rest of Omnium Gatherum’s label(Lifeforce Records) mates. After being entranced by the beauty  ‘Ash and Dust’(First single off their album ‘At Every Door’), I headed on to explore the rest of their discography . The band having established themselves in as early as 2004, have released two full lengths on Spikefarm records At Every Door: Inherit the Eden and Teotawki. ‘Teotawki’ was the only album that I bought off flipkart, but it failed to impress me for it sounded like your average death/doom with drab gothic elements. And for some reason the vocals seemed a tad too hollow and less befitting for the kind of music that they intended to portray. The album did have its moments though, but were too few and far between for one to sit up and take notice. Yet I was far too enamored with their latest single ‘Ash and Dust’, and something kept pressing me to check this new album out. Finally I did get got hold of a promo, and boy wasn’t I floored!

Continue reading →

Heavy Prescription: Hanging Garden and Sons of Aeon

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Ah yes! A belated happy new year to all you lads and lasses!

Today we have the first official installment of the Heavy Prescription series, the first once since our rather premature death on account of getting hacked into. And yes we did lose all previous Heavy Prescription posts along with it. So this one can be regarded as a first for reasons that can’t be more but obvious.

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 Lately I’ve been checking out a lot of songs from the bands from the German Label ‘Lifeforce Records’. I must say that they’ve all been simply mindblowing in terms of sheer quality and musicianship. In my first post in what seemed like an eternity, I did mention the band ‘Omnium Gatherum’ and their new track from their latest album. Well today we are going to follow it up with two more bands from Lifeforce Records which also have their albums coming out in a short while.

1. Hanging Garden

I was hoping that this band had something to do with Babylon or maybe had some sort of Mesopotamian riffing style that they were know for when I came across their name. I was soon to realize that I still haven’t lost my touch in making absolutely wrong guesses.

On the contrary their music seems to have nothing to do with Mesopotamia at all for their forte seems to be get the listener to a somber mood and yet not losing sight of the beauty this song brings along. These guys are from Finland (I shoulda known!) and are all set to release their 3rd LP titled ‘At Every Door’. To describe their music is like describing a pyre burning away, as the last remains of a soul you’ve known withes away. All this is perfectly brought out in their first full track teaser from the album called ‘Ash and Dust’. Listen to the song as slabs of doom are placed over your head…. Demise imminent…

Follow them on Facebook

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xneABtrjohY Continue reading →

Operation : Restart

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hacked11copy

The order of the day is hack, hack, hack! This would have sounded more appealing had it been out of a role playing game. Unfortunately this was precisely what we here at Metalspree had to go through the last few months. Our site was laid waste by hackers whom it seems are more jobless than your average internet joe out there. We’ve had a few break-ins in the past but it kinda shot up recently. We initially had no clues as to whether these were targeted attacks or just random ‘taking a shit’ sort of intrusions, which just happened to be on us of course. For either way we were left limping as to what to do with our site. We were barely trying to recoup ourselves when the site was finally hacked ridiculously three friggin times within a span of 3 weeks. More like slobbering the second leg of the limping man down the street just for the fun of it. Due to a major lapse on our part, we never had a backup of all data on the site; quite obviously we lost all content. Therefore we take this opportunity to sincerely apologize to all the bands that have had reviews written about them on our site and also most importantly to all our followers we have gathered over the past one year of our existence.

On a serious note this might as well be a result of our “.in” extension to our site, for our country as a whole has recently been exposed to a spate of cyber security attacks. With all the hacking teams making great headway in hacking into our government sites (which so happens, have just their bare thin undergarments on for protection).  Our site seems to be just another sidequest in their long objective, probably earning them a few brownie points. So much for hacking with a purpose. Hacking despite its good intentions should have been more directed, and should serve their specific agenda of change . Well let us not digress here and teeter off the road. In the end we’ve decided to steer clear of these hackcracks and are planning to shift to a new server and a new domain and get things rolling once again. To be on the brighter side of things, we are now more than ever, better motivated to run this site with a renewed vigor. You will thus bear witness of our inevitable rise from the ashes.

Let me not bore you with our deplorable state of things, since we have some serious catching up to do! Here are a few tracks released this year, that I think oughta be heard. Continue reading →