Présenter Ghost (ou Ghost B.C) serait sans doute un affront pour vous, metalleux s’apprêtant à lire cette chronique. Car en effet, le groupe connaît depuis ses premières apparitions scéniques, une notoriété qui découle de leur originalité et de leur talent. « Meliora » n’a pas échappé à l’attention des magazines et surtout, aux critiques élogieuses qui lui sont attribué depuis quelques temps. Mais sont-elles méritées ?
Pour ma part, elles le sont amplement. Et j’irai même plus loin en affirmant que « Meliora » est à ce jour, le meilleur album du groupe. Pourquoi ? Tout simplement parce qu’il combine les qualités de ces deux aînés pour aboutir à un parfait compromis; le disque alterne des passages à ambiance et à l’atmosphère addictive avec des refrains et des hymnes plus efficaces que jamais. Rien ne se ressemble, et chaque morceau raconte une histoire avec plus ou moins de subtilités comme « From The Pinnacle To The Pit », qui évoque la chute d’Icare se brûlant les ailes au soleil par des changements de rythmes brutaux.
Qu’il est bon de savourer une œuvre ayant sa propre identité, qui se différencie de la masse et inspire son propre univers. Un album travaillé de bout en bout et qui à l’image de sa pochette, me transporte dans un monde sombre mais magnifique. Qu’il est dommage hélas que ce même album soit aussi court, car huit morceaux seulement serait le seul reproche que je pourrai lui faire.
Ma note : 9/10
Mon Top 5 des chansons de l’album :
01 He Is
02 Majesty
03 From The Pinnacle To The Pit
04 Cirice
05 Mummy Dust
La liste des pistes :
01. Spirit
02. From The Pinnacle To The Pit
03. Cirice
04. Spöksonat
05. He Is
06. Mummy Dust
07. Majesty
08. Devil Church
09. Absolution
10. Deus In Absentia
Clandestine Association et Montdizik ont annoncé que la quatrième édition du Fest’ In’ Montd aura lieu le samedi 7 novembre 2015 à la Salle des Fêtes Jean Dupuy de Montdidier (Somme, Picardie, France) !
Las Vegas’ Escape The Fate are back with new track « Just a Memory » off their upcoming album Hate Me, expected on October 30. This will be the first record with guitar player Kevin « Trasher » Gruft (formerly of LoveHateHero). Moreover, their new bass player hasn’t been announced yet.
The ceremony of the second edition of the Alternative Press Music Awards (APMAs) happened yesterday. If you’re not familiar with it, the APMAs are the awards of the music scene usually shared by Alternative Press, which can be disappointing. You usually find in AP the bands playing in Warped Tour, just to say. No chance of seeing the likes of Hellfest, Rock Am Ring, Download or whatever, these are usually the emo-metalcore-hardcore-somethingcore-blablabla bands.
The particularity of these awards is that there are no judges, anyone can vote which gives you an idea of why some bands actually won in their category.
Despite the lack of bands the ceremony is the occasion to see many bands performing, speeches, rock’n roll icons and reunions.
So here we go with the winners:
– BEST VOCALIST : Hayley Williams, Paramore
– BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND : The 1975
– ICON AWARD : X
– VANGUARD AWARD : Rob Zombie
– BEST BASSIST : Zack Merrick, All Time Low
– ARTIST PHILANTHROPIC: Taking Back Sunday for American Cancer Society
– BEST LIVE BAND : A Day To Remember
– BEST DRUMMER : Rian Dawson, All Time Low
– BEST FANDOM : 5 Seconds Of Summer
– BEST MUSIC VIDEO : “Drown”Bring Me The Horizon
– SONG OF THE YEAR : “Kick Me”Sleeping With Sirens
– BEST UNDERGROUND BAND : Being As An Ocean
– MOST DEDICATED FANS : All Time Low’s “hustlers”
– BEST GUITARIST : Tony Perry, Pierce The Veil
– BREAKTHROUGH BAND : PVRIS
– ARTIST OF THE YEAR : Issues
– ALBUM OF THE YEAR : Black Veil Brides, Black Veil Brides
Moreover, some good performances happened such has Halestorm featuring Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Simple Plan featuring Mike Herrera from MxPx, Weezer. Nevertheless, the most memorable & my own favorite performance was the Sum 41 reunion on stage.
Man Overboard est un groupe de pop punk formé en 2008, composé de Nik Bruzzese, Justin Collier, Zac Eisenstein, Joe Talarico et Wayne Wildrick.
Le tour de force de « Heavy Love » est de mélanger les mélodies du pop punk avec une énergie inspirée du punk rock sans que cela manque de cohérence. Le tout est homogène et bien équilibré, les rifts sont tout aussi efficaces que les refrains. C’est pourtant un album qui n’impacte pas réellement dans ses premières écoutes, selon moi, il fait parti de ceux qui ont besoin d’être repassés plusieurs fois pour qu’on les apprécie réellement. En effet « Heavy Love » ne semble pas être prétentieux ou vouloir offrir la plus accrocheuse des hymnes, il cherche simplement à communiquer une bonne énergie. Si vous partez dans cette optique, alors vous passerez sans doute un fort agréable moment.
Ma note : 6,5/10
Mon Top des Chansons de l’album :
Splinter
Anything
The First Degree
La liste des pistes :
01. Now That You’re Home
02. Borderline
03. Reality Check
04. Splinter
05. The Note
06. Cliffhanger
07. She’s In Pictures
08. Invisible
09. Deal
10. Anything
11. For Jennie
12. A Love That I Can’t Have
13. The First Degree
Cet album est le moins aimé des fans qui ont été déçus lors de sa sortie tout comme les critiques qui l’ont descendu. À l’occasion de la sortie du nouvel album du groupe prévu pour août 2015, revenons sur l’un des bouc émissaires du metal.
Les principaux arguments cités par ses détracteurs sont les suivants :
– Les singles tentant de faire quelque chose de nouveau (Temper Temper, Riot) ne fonctionnent pas.
– Les compositions sont trop basiques.
– Le tout manque de pêche et notamment de screams…
Je vais maintenant vous donner mon avis personnel et expliquer pourquoi je suis d’accord ou non avec ses différents arguments. Pour ma part, je ne soutiens aucun des trois. Du moins presque…
Contrairement à une grande majorité, je trouve les singles plaisants et innovants : le titre éponyme exprime la colère d’une manière autre que le scream, enfin ! Riot propose un genre de mélodie que le groupe n’a jamais tenter sur ses autres productions. Donc le véritable problème de cet album vient justement selon moi, du fait que les singles qui annoncent de la nouveauté ne sont pas représentatifs de l’album. Les compositions ne sont pas basiques mais beaucoup sont des clones de leurs anciennes : « Truth Hurts » s’inspire du rift de « Your Betrayal », « Dead To The World » de la structure de « Say Goodnight » et « Tears Don’t Fall Part 2 » est quasiment identique à son aîné (Et ne me dîtes pas que c’est normal car il s’agit d’une suite, car on peut tout à fait faire une suite cohérente avec son prédécesseur sans le recopier pour autant), « Temper Temper » contient donc trop de réchauffé là ou il aurait justement du se permettre des expérimentations.
Cependant, c’est ce qu’il fait aussi avec quelques morceaux qui valent le détour comme « P.O.W » par exemple et son intro savoureuse. Certaines restent classiques mais n’en demeurent pas pour autant moins efficaces, « Saint and Sinners » en est sans doute le meilleur exemple. Malgré son défaut majeur, « Temper Temper » est un bon album rien que pour les quelques bonnes idées qu’il instaure et l’efficacité qu’il préserve. Je ne comprend donc pas tout le rejet qu’il suscite et particulièrement le reproche lié à celui du manque de pêche : Bullet For My Valentine ne fait pas que du metalcore et c’est tant mieux, il prône avant tout le heavy metal et c’est important de ne pas tout miser sur les screams car ils peuvent devenir affreusement répétitifs.
Ma note : 6,5/10
Mon Top des chansons de l’album :
Breaking Point
Temper Temper
P.O.W
Riot
Saints And Sinners
La liste des pistes :
01. Breaking Point
02. Thruth Hurts
03. Temper Temper
04. P.O.W
05. Dirty Little Secret
06. Leech
07. Dead To The World
08. Riot
09. Saints And Sinners
10. Tears Don’t Fall Part 2
11. Livin’ Life ( On The Edge Of A Knife )
We’ve talked about the band recently since a fight started between them and Sumerian records concerning a song featuring Asking Alexandria‘s Denis Stoff. The band defied them and released the track whatever Sumerian had to say (read this or this).
We’ve had the chance to speak with guitar player Myungjae Lee while he was waiting for a flight in Korea.
Ride The Sky : How are you & where are you right now ?
Myungjae Lee : I’m doing good. I’m in Korea right now.
Are still living in Dubai or have you moved somewhere closer to Germany/the rest of the band?
M: Well, I’m going back to Dubai today but I currently live in the Netherlands. I’ve just travelling since I have holidays now. I’ve just been travelling.
That’s cool. You’ve recently released a new song featuring Denis Stoff, and it has made a lot of people talking about you. Before speaking of this drama with Sumerian, I’ve heard that the song was supposed to come out last year, right ?
M : Well, we didn’t have any specific plans other than including the song on the EP but that was not possible due to factors out of our hands. (The 6 – tracks EP Miles Apart was released in February 2014)
Back in 2013/early 2014 when the song was being recorded, Denis wasn’t as popular as he may be now. Why did you choose him?
M : We knew him since he was doing his covers and there is no doubt that he is a great vocalist, if not one of the best. That was the main reason we chose him. Also, the price was reasonable and we had expected Down & Dirty to be a success.
How did you get in touch with him or his manager?
M : We expressed it to our manager that we would be interested in having him feature in one of our songs and he actually made it happen. After that, we started exchanging emails with Denis.
Did he accept immediately?
M : Our manager told us one day that Denis is interested as well so we shot him an email. Things were actually moving pretty fast when we first went it on this.
I’ve read the different emails [read here] you send him. Seems like he « forgot you » after you sent the money, although it’s true he was working hard with D&D
M : Yes. I can definitely understand him putting his effort in his band but I think deadlines and promises should be respected, especially when we paid him considerable amount of money for him to take part in this.
Despite he had a 4 months delay, are you satisfied with his parts in the song?
M: I personally am satisfied with it.
I’ve seen on Facebook, before you published the emails, some people saying stuff like « he wasn’t famous enough but now he’s with AA so we might use his fame and also make him a douche in the comments », how did you react to that?
M : I’m not going to deny that we took advantage of this situation. But I see nothing wrong with that as we paid him to take part in this. Also, this could have been avoided had he did his part in time or had given us that refund back in last February instead of ignoring it. As for the part that people are accusing us of making him look like a « douche », we are only explaining our side of the story so people would be aware of this whole situation. I think that we will have a great resistance if people knew the story. Regardless, our main intention is to release and have the rights to the song, not make him look bad. If you see our posts or statements, we are not calling him names nor are we labelling him. I think some people are just implying that because a member of their favourite member is in this drama and they feel offended by that, I don’t know.
Seems logic to release it, as he is actually known now. When did you decide to release the song?
M: Obviously after Denis has been announced as Asking Alexandria’s new vocalist haha. We really had no clear plans for it ever since it didn’t manage to make it on the EP as Denis failed to get it done by then.
And when did Sumerian ordered you not to release the song? Was it when you announced the release or previously?
M : We received an email from Denis few days before the release asking us to understand his situation and not to release the video. We did find it understandable but we obviously wanted a refund. However, he said he wouldn’t refund as he did his parts already. We found that very odd so our management reached out to Sumerian and they were supporting Denis. That made no sense.
Are you not afraid of what Sumerian could do as you dared to say « fuck it, we have the right to release it »? Are they still talking with you or have they stopped after you defied their order?
M : Personally, I don’t really think they can do anything. Sure they can take it to court but I think we did nothing wrong so I don’t think they would get anything out of us. Our management has been handling the communication with Sumerian but I don’t think it is still ongoing.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it an order either. They are in no place to control us. I’d rather call it a request.
Do you have any ideas of why Denis asked you to keep the song for yourselves? Quite strange to sing in a song, and then refuse to have it released.
M : He said since he is in Asking Alexandria, he is not allowed to do any features and that us releasing it would put him in trouble. I find that a good reason enough but what I don’t understand was despite all that, he still didn’t want to give us a refund. I mean, it was his choice to join the band and I just don’t find it fair that we have to pay for his decisions. Also, since he’s joined Asking Alexandria, he has been featured in a song of another band.
It’s hard not to mention Asking Alexandria, but did they contacted you? Or was it only Denis and Sumerian?
M : No, we have had no contact with anyone else but Denis from Asking Alexandria. I think this is between us and Denis/Sumerian, not with the whole band.
Well despite this problem, it seems you gained quite a lot of popularity. Seen Metalhammer and AltPress talked about you. How do you feel with that?
M : Well, I think it’s pretty great because more people are becoming aware of our music and band. After all, any publicity is good haha.
I’ve seen you posted a picture recently, do you have a music video coming?
M : Won’t say anything about that so I guess it depends on how you interpret that picture. But we have new music coming and are working on more stuff!
This is really cool, I’m looking forward to this new music. Thank you for time Myungjae and have a good flight
M : Thanks for your time too, have a good day!
Forever In Combat’s latest music video for their hit single « Break Of Dawn »
