Kalisia at Myspace

Despite the fact that the French progressive death metal band Kalisia was founded in 1994, Cybion, released earlier this year, is their debut. With choral vocals and the heavy use of keyboards, I felt that this album is best looked at from the perspective of progressive metal than death metal. When I want to hear death metal, I want something sickening and I want something brutal; this doesn’t deliver on either count, despite the frequent use of harsh vocals. It’s just too melodic to be a really great example of death metal.

Cybion is considerably better as a progressive metal album, but it still has its flaws. It’s supposed to be some sort of sci-fi concept album, but I never really understood it (the fact that many of the vocals are growled didn’t help). It also seems more than a little derivative of Ayreon, what with the multiple singers, squelchy synthesizers and Arjen Anthony-Lucassen himself appearing on one track. It’s messy and overlong, but there are lots of interesting musical passages so it evens out fairly well in the end. I can’t recommend Cybion to death metal fanatics, but prog metal fans should like it. I think it’s decent for a first effort, but I’ll probably never listen to it again.

Dol Theeta at Myspace

Dol Theeta is Thanasis Lightbridge’s second project. His first, Dol Ammad, was unique among metal bands in that it employed a 14-member choir and relied heavily on electronics. Dol Theeta is different, as it lacks a choir and is quite a bit more laid-back than either of the Dol Ammad albums. And there’s the rub- to me, this seems more like a straight-up electronica album with a few metal influences than a metal album. While Dol Ammad straddled the line between “metal” and “not metal”, the choir and epic nature of their songs at least reflected metal aesthetics; the metallic content on “The Universe Expands” is limited to the occasional guitar solo. It’s not a bad electronica album by any means, and open-minded metal fans might enjoy it, but metal purists will want to pass this one up.

Heaps of Dead at Myspace

This is the debut release from Heaps of Dead, an Ontario-based quintet that plays brutal death metal. “Deceased, Dismembered, and Left to Decay” starts off fairly well; the first few tracks are fairly simplistic, but they’re effective despite their simplicity. They reminded me a bit of early Six Feet Under (I know they’re a controversial band, but I enjoyed their first few albums a lot.) The singer does a pretty good job with both high-pitched screaming and death growls. I got the impression that Heaps of Dead was a young band that needed improvement, but had lots of potential.

Unfortunately, starting on track four, a new vocal style rears its ugly head- horrible “BREEE!” pig-squealing. I don’t know what possessed them to incorporate this  awful style, but it just doesn’t work one bit, and should have been left out entirely. These vocals rarely take center stage, but they’re horrible enough that they ruin the tracks where they’re used, and completely ruin what could have been a decent album. Aside from that, I really liked the use of samples from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. If the singer quits the horrible pig-squealing/toad-croaking vocals, Heaps of Dead could be a band to watch in the future. If he keeps using them, though, not even wild horses could get me to listen to this band again.