While on my recent excursion into the murky world of Drone (more on this to come, in about 3 years time, which is how long it’s going to take me to plough through Earth and Sunn O)))’s back catalogue) I briefly segued into classical choral music. It happened while I was watching BBC’s Classic Goldie, on which the Drum and Bass pioneer was saddled with the task of writing a piece of classical music to be preformed at that most British of institutions – The Proms. Part time graffiti artist Goldie, who cannot read or write music, is more accustomed to stringing together audio files in interesting configurations and certainly isn’t your obvious classical composer material. He makes a pretty decent job of it.

Anyway, somewhere along the lines he’s introduced to various, more experimental classical techniques by his mentor. One of these was an unearthly low pitch droning, oscillating hum made by a bunch of blokes with deep voices. Thought I “now this reminds me of early Earth sung by a bunch of blokes with deep voices” and trotted off gleefully to find out more.

It turns out to be the intro to a piece called Roncesvalles from Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles. Mr. Talbot was once a member of British, tongue-in-cheek Brit-pop band The Divine Comedy. He now composes classical music in multiple styles with various degrees of populist slant, and is perhaps best known for his work on movie soundtracks like Son of Rambow and (festering bucket of badger entrails mixed with camel saliva) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Path of Miracles is choral from beginning to end, with few other instruments other than the human voice. I know nothing at all about choral music, so I can’t tell you if this is a good or bad example of it, but it totally bowled me over. The intro to Roncesvalles alone is like nothing I’ve ever heard. This ethereal rising drone sends shivers up my spine. Path of Miracles is comprised of 4 pieces at around 15 minutes in length. It’s sung, at least in part, in English, although it appears to be centred around a trip through various French villages.

Atmospheric and brooding, this is dark stuff. At times spooky or down right scary (along the lines of Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen theme), at others majestic and exulting. There are a fair few parallels in these histrionic overtures with metal – doom, black, drone and even European power metal. However, there’s no sense of quasi-intellectual posturing or irony here, this is the genuine article. It’s complex and difficult, and will  no doubt take countless more listens before it really divulges its secrets.

There’s not much I can say that will do this justice. This is fascinating and powerful music. If you like your music dark and complex, then you should check it out.

The Good

Devin Townsend nonchalantly Tweets:

@dvntownsend counting down…late nights, great progress…suddenly very happy about record 2. Released around Nov 20.

and unleashes more verbose psychobabble on the world:

Musically, ‘Addicted’ is along the lines of the big, wall-of-sound hard rock/heavy metal of Ocean Machine and (The Devin Townsend Project’s) ‘Accelerated Evolution’ — even Physicist at points. It is a very direct and ‘to-the-point’ album with an emphasis on groove and the chorus.

Exciting stuff, seriously. If it’s 1/10th as good as Terria or Accelerated Evolution, it’ll be amazing. Perhaps more tantalizing however is:

On other notes: I have been rehearsing with a new band, and we will start touring in early 2010, representing all the back catalogue of solo material, from ‘Ki’, ‘Addicted’, Physicist, Ziltoid, Terria, Ocean Machine, The Devin Townsend Band, Infinity etc… I have some big plans for this and rehearsals are sounding amazing. The touring entity will be called ‘Devin Townsend’ and is essentially a way for me to get out there and interact again and showcase 15 years of music that never really got its fair shake. We look forward to seeing you out there!

Yeah! You better be doing that in the UK Mr. Townsend!

Next – A new track released off of Megadeth’s anticipated new album:

Do I hear some leanings back to Countdown to Extinction days? Speed metal loveliness indeed!

Every Time I Die released another new track off of the forthcoming New Junk Aesthetic on their Myspace. This is a delightfully pleasant recording, but does anyone else notice a hint of a softer, more commercial sound seeping through? Could this be the beginning of a slippery slope for the southern hardcore mavericks?

This week I discovered that not all Metalcore sucks, with the introduction to my music vocabulary of Burnt by the Sun. Like a darker version of Hatebreed, they keep the breakdowns to a minimum and deliver top notch aggressive metal. I may even put on some big sunglasses and a fake beard (to wear over my real beard) and venture out surreptitiously to but a copy.

Other stuff keeping me happy:

• No Made Sense with their brutal progressive hardcore and stupid sounding album title
• Photonic, which has lead me to dust off various albums by Fugazi, Pavement and Guided by Voices
• Oceansize. Apparently they have an EP out soon.
• Earth. Slowly I’m getting my head around this most frustrating of bands. Albums Pentastar and Hex are simply beautiful but also infuriating.
• Revocation. Everyone is carping on about them like infatuated teenagers thanks to Cosmo Lee’s article suggesting that they may be the next great metal band. That’s probably going a bit far at this early stage, but they are pretty good. The guitar solo on Dismantle the Dictator is to die for. No doubt Metal Hammer will be forcing them down our throat for the next 3 years.

The Bad

Desparately naive wannabe journo’s laying into indisputably legendary bands like Black Sabbath. Why on earth would you write such an ill-informed bucket of badger shit is totally beyond me.

Music streaming site Spotify is part owned by the evil overlords of the music industry in an attempt to keep the site afloat in the face of pitiful advertising revenues and in lieu of paying out royalties to the record labels. If this isn’t depressing enough, it sounds like the artists aren’t getting any royalties either and are unlikely to see any dividends when some cash burdened corporate is stupid enough to buy this service which is as likely to see profit as I am likely to turn green and transform into a million dollar bill.

…and the Ugly

This dude bustin’ some classy moves. I have been known to do this after a couple of beverages, which is when it gets truly ugly.

Mastodon are a great band, so when folks started muttering about Baroness in the same context I should have taken notice. Generally I thought “here’s another stoner band with added Mastodon widdly bits” and filed on my stuff-to-listen-to-at-some-point list somewhere in the middle. This is why it has taken me so woefully long to get with the programme. To paraphrase in the vernacular – EPIC FAIL!

Yes, they do sound a bit like Mastodon – a driving flux of complex psychedelic guitar and complex arrangements. The bands also share a doom/prog lineage. But Baroness cast a mood that’s fundamentally different – although comparatively cerebral, Baroness effect a stoner slouch and southern groove which allows them a brightness that is nonexistent in their fellow Georgians’ music, and place them along side popier counterparts Torche.

The Red Album is bookended with 2 atmospheric instrumental sections. The opening ambient chimes of Rays on Pinion slow-builds into a glorious upbeat, up-tempo stomp before morphing into a part stoner, part punk bruiser. The sun sets on The Red Album with Grad, an azure and brooding post-rocker which recalls Earth, were they ever to have acquired delusions of grandeur.

What happens in between is a purposeful melange of vignettes and slabs of fully formed modern metal. Repeating motif’s subtly weave this ragtag mix into a primal tapestry.

The Birthing, with its southern stylings and dramatic midsection, is heavy and complex, while the stately Isak plods its chiming course through the stoner wasteland. The foreboding space rock of Wailing Wintery Wind is fancifully chased up by the storm-in-a-teacup fingerpicked acoustic Cockroach En Fleur – the first of a suite of elaborate but essential instrumental accessories completed by the post-rock doom of Aleph and Teeth of a Cogwheel, which is like a 70’s soundtrack for a movie about cowboys in space.

With Wunderlust, we’re are presented with the most Mastodon like moment, with guitars dual guitars picking through angular open stringed harmonies butted with shouted discordant vocals and a narrative instrumental mid section that Mastodon would surely have been proud of.

Baroness will need to step out from under Mastodon’s shadow to truly become a powerful musical force. It would be a travesty if they are relegated to a footnote in another bands musical history. The Red Album is as good as (and in many cases better than) anything that Mastodon have recorded.