7
th album from Finnish "cello metal" band, Apocalyptica.
How many cellos does it take to make a heavy metal album?
Well, 4 actually.
Okay, you already know that : 4 cellos, drums, no guitars, no bass.
Two points to make for the uninitiated:
If you're thinking 4 cellos are an unlikely metal vehicle, then think again.
When you reflect on the fact that so much of metal has classical aspirations (and frequent inspiration) then this classic instrument seems so much more obvious than the guitar.
Then, secondly, you kind of remember what Jeff Lynne did for pop music with ELO.
These guys are doing it for metal.
Just to add street cred and a blaze of diversity, Gavin (Bush) Rossdale, Joseph (Gojira) Duplantier, Lacey (Flyleaf) Mosely and Brent (Shinedown) Smith separately provide vocals on the album's 4 non instrumental tracks.
Dave (Slayer) Lombardo contributes artillery shell drumbeats and co-wrote the raging industrial stomp,
'2010', rich in feedback and sinister soundbites.
Opening salvo
'At The Gates Of Manala' and
'End Of Me' are carefully targeted, tightly grouped missiles, levelling the landscape, respectively in an explosion of hot cello metal and roaring, contemporary hard rock with a dark, edgy vocal from Rossdale..
For the appropriately titled '
Beautiful' you can imagine them the string quartet booked to entertain the patrons of an up market art gallery on opening day.
Lyrically, the collaboration with Lacey Mosely -
'Broken Pieces' -is a powerful beast, but musically it tends toward the generic and fails to make quite the impact it is clearly intended to have.
You can't quite hear the cry of 'Sanctuary!!!' on '
On the Rooftop With Quasimodo', but this brooding, evocative instrumental vividly imagines cathedral sized soundscapes. And, on a human level, the heartbreak of the eponymous character. Arguably, this is the album's standout track. The Symphonic centrepiece of the album, and as lyrical an instrumental as you're likely to find.
Initially, I found Duplantier's grit 'n' gargle vocals on the next track, 'Bring Them To Light' to be too much of a contrast to
'.Quasimodo', but the production and the sheer strength of performance grab you by the scruff of the neck and shake you into a dizzy, gratified submission. And there's a decent tune hiding below the song's forbidding metallic surface.
'Rage Of Poseidon' closes the album in a welter of downtuned cellos and low slung musical passages. Like the other instrumental tracks, the melody is sublime. It may be caught in producer, Joe Baress's steely grip, but it breaks free of its production chains from time to time and when it does it soars.
Classy stuff indeed.
Written by
Brian Monday, September 20, 2010
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