Nahemah, Flesh reviews
My review of Nahemah's new album is up at Stylus. After many listens, I realized that Nahemah was like a lusher, less repressed Isis.
Up at Metal Injection is my review of old-school (and excellent) Swedish death metal act Flesh.
Nahemah - Phoenix
Flesh - Baptised on the Demon's Throne
Up at Metal Injection is my review of old-school (and excellent) Swedish death metal act Flesh.
Labels: clee, death metal, post-metal, spain, sweden, writing
6 Comments:
The Nahemah sample you've uploaded makes me think you're being far more forgiving than you could.
I understand 'The Second Philosophy is the sound of a band that listens to Radiohead and Opeth equally.' is neither a deliverance nor damnation (excuse awful pun), just stating it as it is, but it really doesn't make me think anything good. As talented and original both bands arem they've sadly been the inspiration of waves upon waves of lesser bands that ape their shallow stylistics without any of the history that actually makes a band play like that.
Neurosis didn't wake up one day and record Through Silver in Blood, nor Times of Grace (which in my oppinion finalizes the relevant sound), it took personal drama, passion and time for such a sound to have to occur.
Cult of Luna however, woke up oune day and copied Neurosis. Nahemah woke up one day and copied those that copied.
As you say in your review, recently a majestic black metal band, and now I add, probably a disposable Isis clone.
The pun made me smile :) I don't think Nahemah is an Isis clone; the rest of the album is quite diverse and frankly richer in palette than Isis has ever been. There's a Swedish feeling there that Isis doesn't have. Perhaps Burst is a better point of comparison. Nahemah does have its own thing going on; the particular clip I posted had some Isis-esque parts, which led me to make that comparison.
I checked out the rest of the record. The way I see it is this: the only difference between me and you is that there was something in their musical quality that 'hooked' you, but didn't 'hook' me. The rest to say is embellishment that can be spun both ways. They sound like Isis. If you didn't fall for them, then they're an Isis clone. If you fell for them, then they're 'like isis, but more swedish'.
That's fine of course. It's just such a mystifying process, listening to something and surrendering to it to some degree, or even in those rare cases, fully. It underlines the differences between a man and another in how diverse such tastes can be.
Just be careful of presenting music in Invisible Oranges that you don't really really find that amazingly interesting. Let there be some degree of 'encapturement' of you in every band you present, otherwise you run the risk of the people reading you, checking out the mp3s and going 'well, that's okay, nothing special' one too many times and then blam, you're suddenly presenting metal in a way an IKEA catalogue is presenting furniture.
I'm just saying, let there always be personal involvement that is a bit more than 'this is interesting, I think'. That's just not Heavy Metal enough.
Heh, you make a good point :) Metal is definitely music of personal involvement. I stand behind every band I present here, including Nahemah. One track on the album, with clean vocals and definite un-Isis feeling, I listened to for hours on repeat. I think they are an interesting synthesis of influences that could point to evolution in the artform.
"Interesting" is a great compliment for music these days. The vast majority of music now does not reach that standard. Thus, if something is both interesting, and I like it, it makes it into Invisible Oranges. I can't write about every band as if they are the greatest in the world. That would be false. Too many times of "this is so great!" would be like crying wolf.
I don't tell people what to think. What I write shows what I think; people can hear the music, and then decide for themselves if they like it.
Good to know. You are right to not praise every band you liked to the sky. Sadly it happens a lot in metal press (metal people are naturally very enthusiastic... is one way to look at it, I'll leave the label money (or promos, or whatnot) going into creating favourable reviews aside) and it creates both unrasonable hype and also a bigger problem for me:
What do you write then, when something really IS that amazing? How to climb over the impossible precident of hyperbole and exclaim that what you have in your hands is that type of special that everyone should sample.
Well, if I'm writing for another publication, then a letter or number grade would be some indication. Also, if I generally keep my hyperbole in check, then when I do use it, it means something. If people read enough of my stuff, they'll be able to tell when I'm enthusiastic.
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