Sacram - Far Away (2007)

 

Cost: $1.00

The disc starts out rather mellowly with jangly guitars and ethnic-influenced melodies which I can't decide are more Mediterranean or Middle Eastern sounding. This has me prepped for much more progressive-sounding music, but then the rest of the short track was very straightforward melodic death metal with black metal sounding vocals. The beginning of the title track opens in much the same way (I was leaning a bit more towards it being more Mediterranean in sound), but later in the song there are several sections of clearly Middle Eastern melodies that are very reminiscent of Orphaned Land. The third track is more melodic DM, but they do throw in more of the Middle Eastern stuff towards the end.

The closing track takes on a slower tempo. There are melancholy, doomy-but-not-pure doom elements that remind me a lot of Scandinavian bands, but I also detect a bit of the atmospheric Greek touch--not any overly strong Hellenic influence, but it shares a bit of the undercurrent running through disparate bands like Horrified, Nightfall, Septic Flesh, and Rotting Christ's gothic era. That said, especially considering the type of melodic death here as well as the Middle Eastern melodies, I definitely would not have guessed they were from Greece.

This is a case where I actually wish they had explored the slower and more atmospheric touches in their sound (even going farther into progressive territory--gasp!). It's just a short mCD though, and the melodic DM is competent enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome, and even the small touches of those other elements make it stand out positively. Can't complain for a buck.

A Sound of Thunder - Out of the Darkness (2011)

 

Cost: $2.00

Wasn't expecting much from this. I'm generally not a fan of female vocals in metal anyway, but I was never motivated to check out A Sound of Thunder. I thought many of their themes and aesthetics were kind of corny, and some aspects of the band (including, obviously, the name itself) came off as a extremely contrived attempt to appear highbrow and nerdier-than-thou. Lord Weird Slough Feg, they are not. Also, especially considering they are fairly prolific in terms of releases, I've never seen them get much attention in classic metal circles or in any of the metal media I typically consume. It can't be just me, because as far as I know, this is the only album of theirs to have a non-self-released version (although the one I found in the cheap bin was the independent version and not the Nightmare Rec. press).

Ironically, I think having low expectations meant this made more of an impact. There are certainly plenty of traditional metal influences here, and although they aren't as retro as I would typically associate with the movement, I wouldn't have any issue with them being lumped in as a NWOTHM band. Still, this is hardly pure classic metal worship or '80s emulation, and the band don't hesitate using slicker, more commercial hard rock parts, as well as going the other way and getting pretty thrashy. Viewed solely as an oldschool metal album this would be a pretty big disappointment, but approaching it as a modern power/heavy metal album that blends some old influences with more contemporary elements, it's pretty good.

I have mixed feelings about the vocals. There's no doubt they're very powerful, but also very clean, and I have come to terms with the fact that I typically prefer metal frontwomen to have some sort of Leather Leone or Betsy Bitch grit to their voice. Her singing works a little better during thrashier parts in conjunction with the higher energy, but I thought her most expressive and emotive singing was a more mellow, restrained style used in the "This Too Shall Pass" ballad and a few other places. All that said, the best vocals on the entire disc are John Gallagher's guest appearance on "Out of the Darkness," which just made me keeping thinking how much more awesome the album would have been had he sung everything. 

Finally, not a real complaint or anything, just an observation. The beginning of the album seems to contain all the material that has more overt '70s Priest and Rainbow influence in the guitarwork, while the latter half of the album has the more mid-paced, galloping, and/or epic material that has more obvious Maiden/Manowar influences.

Worth the 2 bucks, and I'd even be open to revisiting this once in a while or checking out some of their other releases. It's not bad. But I also found myself asking if A Sound of Thunder was preferable to female-fronted bands that took a far more purist/traditionalist approach to metal, even if that admittedly made them more generic soundwise (I was specifically thinking of something like Savage Master). The answer was definitely no.