Review Summary: Metal for the 21st Century
Metal as a genre was built on certain individuals, intent and blinded by a desire to push the boundaries of what was musically possible, to achieve extreme results in technical proficiency, unorthodox results musically and to achieve a style of music suited for a minority of people. Nowadays, mainstream metal is frequently heard on the radio and everyday youths buy into this commercial façade. To me, mainstream metal just isn’t metal, the idea and desire behind it is corrupted by disillusioned perceptions of being successful. The extreme factor of metal is cushioned and streamlined, making it more accessible for the general public. Fundamentally, streamlining something that was created from something raw is bizarre. Metal has always been about the extreme. Black Sabbath accomplished and pioneered metal in the early seventies, Iron Maiden in the early eighties, the Big Four continued into the nineties to influence bands such as Pantera and Machine Head while all the while the real extreme bands were surfacing from Europe with brands of metal entrenched in darkness and aggression. Now into the 21st Century, all we seem to witness is previously underground bands return to a form of metal first heard in the eighties. Instead of pushing and progressing, bands seem hell bent on regression. These bands are undoubtedly fun to listen to, which is why they are loved by many, but we are still waiting for that natural progression.
SikTh, a band few have heard of in the music industry, even perhaps in the metal industry. Their brand of genre leaping metal, exceeds the tastes of much of the music loving public, with their rapid interweaving technical riffs, exceptionally hyperactive vocals, it isn’t a wonder as to why this band is often overlooked. There appears to be no apparent restraint on their music writing, i.e. you can guarantee this band’s style will ever be suited to the metal mainstream, yet behind the chaotic note choice, rhythm’s and subsequent progressions, lies a desire to be creative that I think at times is peerless.
Death of a Dead Day, the 2nd album from the band reveals a subtle refinement on the bands part, of their creative and experimental ability. This on the whole, provides a more consistent listen in terms of quality. The bands previous effort, ‘The Trees are Dead and All Dried out’ was perhaps, depending on your opinion of course, hindered by the prolonged experimentations such as ‘Tupelo’ and ‘Can’t We All Dream’, some can certainly argue that this added to the general creativity of the album, but perhaps to the extent that the album’s overall quality was undermined. Death of a Dead Day focuses on the songs themselves and most of the band’s creative experimentation lie within them.
Fears of a more consistent album, lacking in flair are put to rest immediately. This album certainly doesn’t lack any flair. In terms of technicality, in all aspects, drums, bass, guitar, instrumentally, you will be hard pushed to find a band as technical and sporadic. Each member demonstrates an incomprehensible knowledge of their instrument, each pushing the boundaries of what was previously capable, musically and technically. Encompassed within these passages of systematic chaos is a wealth of creative musical ideas. Notes which are seldom played together are shunted with care into the many, many riffs to create original, driving guitar and bass lines. However these moments of technical mastery are highlighted by profoundly melodic and sensitive passages which serve to create an ever occurring juxtaposition between styles throughout the album. While segments of their playing are reminiscent of tech-metal, nu-metal and mathcore, other segments delve into a far more mainstream sound. There is also a distinct eccentricity about their music with frequent eccentric nuances scattered around the album’s songs. This unsettled and un-regimented ideology the band have towards their music is where the band have developed their own style and sound and is also perhaps the main attraction towards a band of this kind. Tracks such as ‘Bland Street Bloom’ and ‘Way beyond the Fond Old River’ are prime examples of this. Amongst the foray of trade offs and time shifts, catchy, hum able melodies are produced providing a truly compelling listen.
The vocals tend to demonstrate a similar level of musical creativity as both Justin Hill and Mikee Goodman utilise extreme guttural utterances to accompany the equally aggressive and extreme instrumentals. In the melodic sections however, it is fair to say that Justin is left to the singing duties as his edgy/clean singing style is ideal for much of the melodies while the lyrics and 60% of the harsh vocals are left to Mikee.
The instrumentals have to be heard to be believed, for a band to be perfectly precise with the amount of time shifts and key changes that the band deliver at will, precision of this kind is rarely heard. With the guitar duties under Pin and Dan Weller’s wings, their riffs explore ideas rarely explored in metal. Their riffs tend to be a hybrid collection of modern guitar ideas, such as tapping, and less frequently used techniques such as slap harmonics, which can be found in the intro to ‘Summer Rain’, Their solos being equally experimental. The most astounding thing however is these experimental and progressive ideas are anchored by beautiful harmonies. The solos in ‘Way beyond the Fond Old River’ and ‘In This Light’ being examples of this where solos such as the one in ‘Another Sinking Ship’ being far less conventional. Dan Foord and James Leach inevitably form the back bone of the band with both members complimenting each other perfectly to deliver and execute the band’s free form song and riff structures. Personally I feel these two musicians enable the band to achieve such astounding transformations throughout songs.
Ultimately, it’s all good and well having a band with absurdly talented musicians, but without a talent in song-writing, technical proficiency becomes futile, meaningless. The songs on Death of a Dead Day however do not fall into this all too often seen situation. Thankfully the common downfalls of much modern metal i.e. tiresome, over used and clichéd ideas, were inevitably going to be avoided with a band such as SikTh. Because of their free roaming style, the variation in this album is overwhelming. While some songs focus on the technical and aggressive aspects of their style, ‘Another Sinking Ship,’ ‘Sanguine Seas of Bigotry’, others delve into the previously stated mainstream and accessible style such as ‘In This Light,’ and ‘Where Do We Fall’. However the majority of the songs simply combine both elements of their song-writing to produce the real masterpieces of the album. Songs such as ‘Bland Street Bloom,’ ‘Part of the Friction’ and ‘As the Earth Spins Round’ are all stunning and epic pieces of song-writing and highlight the aforementioned aspects beautifully. All aspects are executed with an awareness and ability that keeps the quality of their album high and maintains their distinctive style. An achievement not often reached by the majority of modern metal.
Most will never even glimpse at this band as they produce music that requires your full attention, to sit down and listen to every nuance, time shift, key change and bridge. You might be surprised to hear, but as a lover of the more commercial and renowned metal bands such as Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera and even Trivium, on first listening to SikTh the effect the music had on me was much like a crackling radio, moments of incomprehensible noise, separated by segments of listenable music. With time and numerous spins however, I learned to love this album.
Amongst this recent outburst of nostalgic metal, a few bands have progressed forward fearlessly and without hesitation. SikTh I can safely say are one of these bands. This is metal for the 21st Century.
NOTE: I appreciate this has been reviewed before, but I wanted to wait a while before reviewing this as to see if this album had the same effect on me as it did a year ago, i.e. to see if it got old.
