Album Review: "The Unseen Empire" by Scar Symmetry

When a band experiences any significant membership change, they usually get a one-album grace period, during which they are afforded a chance to work out any issues resulting from the change. After that grace period ends, if the band cannot hold the interest of their established fans, then those fans usually abandon the band. This is especially true with vocalist changes, since many vocalists are the most recognizable members of their respective bands.

This is the reality that has faced Scar Symmetry since 2008. After releasing their 2008 masterpiece Holographic Universe, lead vocalist Christian Älvestam abruptly left the band, causing a massive backlash among fans. Many critics regard Älvestam as one of the best vocalists in all of modern metal, and rightly so. His guttural roars and screams are the antithesis of the beautiful melodies he sings, and very few singers are capable of reproducing his vocal performances. Perhaps the greatest indicator of his talent, though, is the fact that Scar Symmetry needed two singers to replace one.

Roberth Karlsson and Lars Palmqvist had some humongous shoes to fill when they stepped into the roles of co-lead vocalists for Scar Symmetry. Karlsson had little experience in such a vital position (as the brief frontman for Edge of Sanity in the late '90s), while Palmqvist had never before been in a band with any degree of prominence. Their performance on 2009's Dark Matter Dimensions convinced many fans that Scar Symmetry was still in good shape, but many others remained skeptical, calling for Älvestam's return. And now that the one-album grace period has passed, fans will judge Karlsson and Palmqvist even more harshly than before.

Album Review: "Circle Regenerated" by Norther

Norther suffered a harsh loss in 2009, when lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter Petri Lindroos left the band. The reason for his departure was obvious, as his commitments to folk metal group Ensiferum were much more time-consuming than those with Norther. Given Ensiferum's recent growth in success, it also made sense for Lindroos to stick with the more popular band. However, Norther was left in an extremely precarious position, as three vital positions within the band were vacated, with few conceivable options for filling them. Thankfully, though, the Finnish group was able to adapt. Rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist Kristian Ranta, who had co-written a number of songs with Lindroos on both 2006's Till Death Unites Us and 2008's N, assumed the primary songwriting role for the growth of the band. Norther also found two new musicians that were already veterans of the Finnish metal scene to join the band. These things have all led to Norther's newest studio album, the appropriately-titled Circle Regenerated.

Album Review: "Fake History" by Letlive

There are two reasons why Glassjaw is considered to be one of the primary innovators of post-hardcore. The first is Daryl Palumbo's incredibly distinct vocal style, allowing him to be instantly recognized on any song on which he sings. The second is the group's unique compositional style, which allowed for experimentation while still upholding the precepts of the genre. Most recent post-hardcore bands have attempted to replicate the group's formula, with varying degrees of success. One of these groups is Los Angeles-based quintet Letlive (sometimes typeset as letlive.). The group started out in the underground, but their third album, Fake History, ignited a lot of hype about the group when it was initially released by Tragic Hero Records in 2010 (and then re-released by Epitaph Records in 2011). However, whether the album truly deserves the accolades it has received is still open to debate.

Album Review: "Celestial Completion" by Becoming the Archetype

Christian progressive metal group Becoming the Archetype has consistently released high-quality music since their humble beginnings as Nonexistent Failure in the early part of the decade, and then as The Remnant for a further two years. They've benefited a great deal from the input of excellent producers on each of their three full-length albums following their final name change. With the help of Tue Madsen (Terminate Damnation), Andreas Magnusson (The Physics of Fire), and Devin Townsend (Dichotomy), each Becoming the Archetype album has been better than its predecessor, becoming more progressive and well-balanced in sound each time. It was understandable, therefore, that some people were confused and/or worried when the band announced Matt Goldman as producer for the group's fourth album. Better known for his work with post-hardcore groups such as Underoath, Four Letter Lie, Vanna, and Oceana, Goldman seemed to be an odd choice for the Georgia-based group, and some worried that it might be the first major misstep for Becoming the Archetype.

Album Review: "The Discovery" by Born of Osiris

Born of Osiris was one of the first bands to break away from the deathcore craze in favor of technically-infused death metal. The Illinois-based band had an edge over most of their contemporaries in this endeavor, though. As one of the only deathcore bands at the time to use keyboards, Born of Osiris easily transitioned out of their deathcore roots after their 2007 EP, The New Reign. Just in time for their first full-length album, 2009's A Higher Place, the group reconstructed their sound on their own terms and made a huge impact, landing at number 73 on the Billboard 200 charts in its first week. This established Born of Osiris as a heavyweight group in the world of metal, and also paved the way for their second album. The Discovery is a solid record with a number of unexpected twists and turns during its nearly-53 minute run time.

Album Review: "Beast" by DevilDriver

When DevilDriver rose from the ashes of Coal Chamber, many people expected the same mainstream performance of heavy music that frontman Dez Fafara had used in his former band. Those expectations were fully eliminated by the time DevilDriver's second album, 2005's The Fury of Our Maker's Hand, stormed onto the scene. It was clear that DevilDriver was a completely separate and undeniably superior band, with their no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to metal. With a decade now under the band's collective belt, DevilDriver has figured out their niche sound and the best methods of execution for their unique style of melded groove, thrash, hardcore, and death metal. Their fifth album, Beast, lives up to its namesake by being the fastest, most intense, and overwhelmingly heaviest record of their career.

Album Review: "The Unforgiving" by Within Temptation

Dutch symphonic metal group Within Temptation never fails to make their music interesting. Their fifteen-year career has been a continuous experiment to stretch their limits and explore every aspect of their sound to its fullest. Each album they have released to this point has focused on a different musical element, allowing that element to grow and evolve, and then carrying that growth over to future releases. Thus, Within Temptation's sound has been an ever-changing spiral of refinement and progress. Now, on their fifth studio album, The Unforgiving, Within Temptation has taken the next big step in audio evolution by re-shaping their entire compositional structure and songwriting approach to include new elements and styles. These bold endeavors have yielded a simply breathtaking album with more substance and intensity than anything the band has written before.

Album Review: "Metamorphosis" by Mercenary

In late 2009, Mercenary's lineup was sliced in half with the departure of vocalist Mikkel Sandager, keyboardist Morten Sandager, and drummer Mike Park. With the exodus of so many members, most bands would have just called it quits. But Mercenary soldiered on, reducing their lineup to a four-piece group and expanding their roles to cover all instruments. Many fans remained skeptical, though, doubting that the band could reach even a shadow of their former excellence without the Sandager brothers or Park in the band anymore. In particular, the impending absence of Mikkel's soaring power metal vocals caused a great deal of apprehension among longtime fans, as his vocal style helped to shape the band's best material. Surprisingly, though, Mercenary's first outing with their new roster, the aptly-titled Metamorphosis, is a good album with a lot of positive aspects to compensate for the missing pieces.

Album Review: "Surtur Rising" by Amon Amarth

When a band is the most prolific in the world to play a particular type of music, the temptation often exists to rest on one's laurels, release sub-standard material, and generally show disregard for previous success in favor of basking in the sunshine of success. This usually leads to the swift downward spiral and implosion of that band. The only way to avoid that is to do what Swedish titans Amon Amarth have done: never release anything that is less than excellent, always try to be better than your previous material, and never stop to admire past successes. For the better part of two decades, Amon Amarth has been the biggest producer of self-styled "Viking metal" in the world, eclipsing many veteran bands playing a similar style and simultaneously outshining every newcomer that has entered their genre. Their latest opus, Surtur Rising, further cements Amon Amarth in their status as the greatest Viking metal group of all time.

Album Review: "Relentless Reckless Forever" by Children of Bodom

No metal band has a more divided fan base than Children of Bodom. Over the course of a career spanning close to 15 years, the Finnish group has repeatedly churned out albums that only exacerbate the fragmentation of their listeners. This is not due to a lack of skill, as the talent of frontman and lead guitarist Alexi Laiho has never been in question. Rather, genre consistency has always been an impossibility for the group, as each album modifies the sound from its predecessor in some way, shape, or form. Starting out as a death metal group with thrash and black metal influences, transitioning into a death-thrash hybrid, and even showing subtle metalcore influences on their last two albums, Children of Bodom just couldn't seem to decide how they should sound. However, the band's newest full-length album, Relentless Reckless Forever, actually takes a few steps back and finds a consistent tone that should please most Bodom fans.

Album Review: "Dimensions" by Audio Insight

Progressive rock is a genre that has its tested veterans and its one-shot failures, and very little in between. When a band forms and chooses its direction as progressive rock, that band needs to have a very clear goal in mind, or else they are usually destined to become one of the many one-shot failures. In the modern realm of prog rock, bands like Karnivool, Mutemath, and even Coheed & Cambria have garnered immediate success because of their clear and distinct vision and goal for their sound. So it is with New Jersey's newest three-piece prog act, Audio Insight. These college kids have a firm grasp on the sound they want to create, and while they require some polishing, their debut album Dimensions is an impressive beginning to their career.

Album Review: "The Hymn of a Broken Man" by Times of Grace

In every era and genre of music, there are certain albums that define the period and establish trends that everyone else follows. The dawn of metalcore in the early 2000s was defined by Killswitch Engage's monumental sophomore album, Alive or Just Breathing. The perfect blend of harsh and clean vocals from vocalist Jesse Leach, combined with the overwhelmingly catchy guitar riffs written by Adam Dutkiewicz, yielded an album with influential power still felt today. The speed with which Alive or Just Breathing began to change metal was astounding, and only matched by the shocking and sudden departure of Leach from the band in 2002, the same year the album was released. It was an unfortunate ending to what many consider to be the band's greatest era, and while Leach's replacement, Howard Jones, is more than capable as a frontman, Killswitch Engage has not yet released an album that has matched the influence and scope of Alive or Just Breathing.

Which is why Times of Grace, the new collaboration by Leach and Dutkiewicz, is already one of the best bands in modern metal, nine years after the fateful change in Killswitch Engage's lineup. In that time, Dutkiewicz's position as one of the best songwriters in American metal has not changed, as he is still able to craft incredible compositions on guitar, bass, and drums. Meanwhile, Leach has somehow become an even more powerful singer, with an even wider vocal range and more control over his primal screams. These factors come together on the duo's debut album as Times of Grace, entitled The Hymn of a Broken Man. And just like Alive or Just Breathing before it, The Hymn of a Broken Man is already attracting praise and accolades from all over the metal community for its pure excellence.

Top 20 Albums of 2010

Yes, it's that time again. The end of the year is upon us, which means it's time to roll out what albums made this year amazing for me. However, there are some people that have pointed out something about my past year-end lists, so let me make a quick disclaimer before I start this shindig:

I listen to a LOT of music. I have a 160 GB iPod that is maxed out with music, and I intend to get another one in the future and max it out as well. My music is my life. That said, I did not get to every album that was released this year in the rock and metal world. In fact, I didn't get to nearly as many as I wanted. I will listen to the albums I missed in the future though. At that time, if I determine that one of those albums is good enough, I will adjust my rankings to accommodate it. Thus, this list may change in the future. If you are not okay with that, I am sorry, but they are my rankings, not yours. I do my best to remain consistent, but that isn't always possible. Unlike last year, when my choices were extremely clear-cut for me, I spent hours agonizing over this list, trying to find a way to order it and decide which albums meant the most to me. It's been reordered and reconsidered more times than I can remember, and as I said, the chance exists that it will be redone again in the future. About the only thing I can promise is that my top three will always stay the same. For everything beyond that, I'm standing by the order that I have listed here for the foreseeable future.

Now that that's out of the way, we can move on to the list itself. As I just stated, I listened to significantly less music this year than I did last year. There are multiple things that factored into that, most of them having to do with the fact that I actually write about the music I listen to now instead of just listening. Either way, if you remember last year's top 200 list and were hoping for something similar, I must unfortunately (unfortunate for me, at least) announce that I will not be reaching that milestone. Hell, I have a long way to go before I get to even half of that. However, to make up for that fact and my lack of reviews for several weeks, I will give you an extended best-of list for this year.

Album Review: "Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa" by Cradle of Filth

Few bands have attracted as much derision as Cradle of Filth has throughout their career. But they are one of the few metal bands where the hatred arises not from lack of talent, but from overabundance of talent and the inability of some listeners to recognize it. Looking back at the black metal scene and extreme metal in general, Cradle of Filth has consistently been among the pioneering bands. If a trend becomes popular, they were usually doing it before most others. Even the band's missteps (Damnation and a Day and Thornography immediately come to mind) still have their hidden gems of inspiration and innovation. 2008's Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder was a stunning return to form, and its intriguing conceptual storyline was remarkably well-executed. Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, another concept album, is a daring release with its own batch of new twists that will delight fans and potentially convert some naysayers.

Album Review: "Poetry for the Poisoned" by Kamelot

Kamelot is one of the leading bands in power metal because they have dared to do what many bands would not - expand their borders. The reason that The Black Halo and Ghost Opera were so successful is that they went outside the norms for most power metal bands. Instead of fast, over-the-top compositions of grandiosity and slow, crooning ballads placed side by side over the length of an album, Kamelot has dared to blend those two extremes and construct power metal songs more akin to what genre creators Iron Maiden did in their early years. Thus, instead of trying to top the creators (something that many modern power metal bands seem to be trying to do), Kamelot has decided to emulate them, and they have become a better band because of it. Their latest album, Poetry for the Poisoned, is very different from what the band has done on its two predecessors, but it is nonetheless a surprisingly good album that proves its worth over time, rather than through an instantaneous musical reveal.

Album Review: "A Thousand Suns" by Linkin Park

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is revered as one of the greatest albums of all time because it was one of the most ambitious albums released by any music performer in that era. The idea of crafting an entire album that was designed to be a continuous musical composition, rather than several separate songs, was a revolutionary idea in rock music at that time. Sure, concept albums existed before Dark Side of the Moon, but virtually all of them were conceptually based around a lyrical theme, rather than a musical theme. And while the album did have its singles, the innovation and progression it introduced forever changed the musical landscape.

Other groups have tried, with varying degrees of success, to release albums that are one continuous composition, but most groups that attempt this feat are part of genres in which that type of album is expected. Progressive rock groups such as Rush and Porcupine Tree, or technical metal bands like Meshuggah and Between the Buried and Me, are the best examples of success in this venture. Not since the album that started it all has a mainstream rock group with a worldwide following in the hundreds of millions attempted a feat such as this - until now.

Album Review: "Forging the Eclipse" by Neaera

Neaera has been one of the best and most consistent bands in the new wave of German metal during the past decade. After two albums of tough and brutal metalcore, the band really found their stride on 2008's Armamentarium, an extremely strong melodic death metal album with a vast number of standout tracks. Armamentarium was the album that put Neaera in the top echelon of Germany's new metal scene, leading the pack alongside Heaven Shall Burn and Caliban. And although 2009's Omnicide - Creation Unleashed didn't quite match the quality of Armamentarium, it was still a solid album with a great overall tone. Maintaining their unbelievably fast production speed with their fifth album in six years, Neaera is back with Forging the Eclipse, an album that keeps them at the top of the heap with impressive new styles and overall performance.

Double Review: "Silent Chaos Serpentine" and "Psalms of Conscious Martyrdom" by Stigmata

Metal is not exclusive to any one country or location, as any fan of the genre knows. Where the spirit and drive to play heavy and loud exists, metal will find a way. So it is with Sri Lankan group Stigmata, a powerful and unique group with the heart of metal deeply embedded in all five members. Stigmata is one of only thirteen groups identified by the Encyclopedia Metallum as being located in Sri Lanka, a country better known for its civil war and tea production than any sort of music scene. Nonetheless, Stigmata has a lot of skill and potential appeal. Their two most recent albums, Silent Chaos Serpentine and Psalms of Conscious Martyrdom, are the stuff that makes most bands into humongous successes.

Album Review: "Blood in the Gears" by The Showdown

The Southern metal scene does not often cross paths with the Christian metal world, but there are some bands that choose to embrace both groups, despite their seeming disconnect. The two leading bands in this group are Tennessee's The Showdown and Georgia's Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and both bands add some modern metal elements into their sound to create a fairly unique blend. However, The Showdown leans more towards the Southern metal side of things than any of their contemporaries; evidenced by their sophomore album Temptation Come My Way, a straightforward Southern rock mostly devoid of screaming or breakdowns. Their third album, 2008's Back Breaker, achieved an excellent fusion of melodic and aggressive elements, earning them widespread acclaim and recognition for finding their stride. Now back on the scene with Blood in the Gears, The Showdown is out to prove just how diverse and multi-faceted their sound can be.

Album Review: "Imperfect Harmonies" by Serj Tankian

When System of a Down went on indefinite hiatus in 2006, fans unanimously clamored for a more detailed reason as to why, dissatisfied with the band's official statement of wanting to do different things. However, lead singer Serj Tankian quelled the discontent of the masses with his 2007 solo debut, Elect the Dead. Retaining many of the signature elements that made System great, Elect the Dead was a big hit among fans and satiated them for two years. However, the quirky live album Elect the Dead Symphony was less popular with listeners, who did not understand its purpose or meaning. Meanwhile, Scars of Broadway, the side project of System members Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan, was not as successful as Tankian's solo work.

These two factors combined led fans to restart the calls for a System reunion. Unfortunately for those hoping to hear more music similar to System from Tankian, the singer's sophomore solo effort, Imperfect Harmonies, sounds drastically different from Elect the Dead. However, those with open minds might find this to be a good thing, as Tankian takes a huge step into experimental prog rock with his new material.