Tanagra - Meridiem

By Calen Henry. Tanagra are an unsung hero within the recent US power / traditional metal revival. In 2015, with little fanfare, they released a great debut, None of This is Real, a scrappy mix of traditional and power metal anchored by Tom Socia’s vocals

By Calen Henry.

Artwork by Gary Tonge

Tanagra are an unsung hero within the recent US power / traditional metal revival. In 2015, with little fanfare, they released a great debut, None of This is Real, a scrappy mix of traditional and power metal anchored by Tom Socia’s vocals. Closer to traditional metal that power metal, Socia’s vocals are mostly tenor, with a touch of grit giving the band a unique sound in a space rife with squeaky clean cleans and falsetto.

Tanagra, in contrast to much power metal, maintain a lower intensity than typical of the genre. Clearly intentional, and by no means a criticism, Tanagra keep things at a controlled burn. Songs never escalate to a falsetto scream or a huge rhythmic breakdown. For Meridiem, though, the band have polished their sound and really dug into their epic side. It’s bursting with complex arrangements, epic vocals, sweep picking and tapping guitar leads, orchestral embellishments, and even features some forays into odd time signatures like on None of This is Real. The band have upped the ante considerably from their debut, but kept their hallmarks, especially the tenor vocals, which now occasionally dip into baritone. Making no bones about all this the album opens with the over 11 minute title track, starting with the ominous ticking of a grandfather clock before launching into Tanagra’s progressive power metal assault.

It’s immediately evident that extreme care and creativity has been given to the composition and performances and digging into the albums lyrics shows the same. Though not ostensibly a concept album, Meridiem’s songs center around a cohesive fantasy world and tell epic stories of struggle and strife within it. It’s unclear if the band has created the world or simply written in an unnamed existing fantasy world, but either way it adds depth to the music for those willing to dig deep and the band clearly want that, having posted lyrics with all the songs on Bandcamp.

For all the boxes Meridiem ticks, though, it’s let down a bit by it’s production. For all the dynamic instrumentation and vocals, the net result sounds a bit flat. It could be that it’s more compressed (DR 5 to None of This is Real’s DR 8), but Tanagra’s extremely controlled music is robbed of impact due to the production. Some will likely find it more noticeable than others, but it can make the album a bit harder to engage with that it would have been with a more dynamic mix.

Meridiem is very much worth engaging with. Tanagra fill a niche that not many modern bands do, and they do it very well.

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

By Justin C. I stumbled across Helms Alee just one album ago, with 2016’s Stillicide, so I can’t pretend to be intimate with their entire career arc. I’ve seen them described as sludge, psychedelia, and grunge, but I think all of those are off the mark

By Justin C.


I stumbled across Helms Alee just one album ago, with 2016’s Stillicide, so I can’t pretend to be intimate with their entire career arc. I’ve seen them described as sludge, psychedelia, and grunge, but I think all of those are off the mark, especially when talking about their new album, Noctiluca.

I’ve been listening to the promo for this album compulsively. Helms Alee might be metal adjacent at this point, but they manage to mix heavy with charm in a way that have made a recent car accident and injury on top of moving to a new house somewhat bearable. Songs like “Be Rad Tomorrow” have a propulsive, infectious energy. The riff and rhythm are relatively simple, but they’re a great example of doing a lot with a little. Add the combination of both lilting and driving vocals on top in the chorus, and you’ll want to drive down a sun-baked road 100 mph while listening to it.

This particular track also shows off one of the band’s greatest strengths: all three members make strong vocal contributions. Ben Verellen primarily supplies a style I like to call “hollering” next to Dana James’s and Hozoji Matheson-Margullis’s cleans, be they ethereal or driving. The combinations and harmonies brought all kinds of bands to mind, including Kylesa and The Breeders, but that’s more of a “for fans of…” list than anything else.

Helms Alee also manage that rarified achievement of mixing different levels of heavy, light, and trippy while always sounding like the same band. “Play Dead” wanders into early-Baroness territory of heavy rock/metal with interludes of bewitching harmonies, but “Lay Waste, Child” wouldn’t be out of place on the soundtrack of Apocalypse Now. There’s nothing jarring about the transitions, though. This might not be the kind of bruising music that we typically cover here, but Helms Alee have made a cohesive, compelling album out of disparate sounds, and in doing so, they make a compelling argument against anyone who says that rock is dead.

Bridge Burner – Chlorine Eyes / Abyssal

By Craig Hayes. The New Zealand metal scene isn’t short of strong vocalists, but the voice of Bridge Burner singer Ben Read stands out as one of most powerful and versatile. Read’s time fronting bands like In Dread Response, The Mark of Man, and Ulcerate has served him well

By Craig Hayes.


The New Zealand metal scene isn’t short of strong vocalists, but the voice of Bridge Burner singer Ben Read stands out as one of most powerful and versatile. Read’s time fronting bands like In Dread Response, The Mark of Man, and Ulcerate has served him well in developing a vocal style that mines myriad layers of both nuance and savagery from throat-shredding shrieks, snarls, howls, and growls. Read’s recordings with Auckland-based sonic annihilators Bridge Burner feature some of his best work yet, and that’s more than apparent on the band’s latest tracks, “Chlorine Eyes” and “Abyssal”.

Bridge Burner’s new songs are barbaric bait primed to lure fans along to upcoming shows where they're opening for Cult Leader and Primitive Man on their respective NZ tours. That’s an apt pair of bands for Bridge Burner to be supporting too. Like Primitive Man, Bridge Burner’s music explores existential and corporeal agonies and Bridge Burner also make bleak and bruising aesthetic choices that hammer their crushing missives home. Like Cult Leader, Bridge Burner’s music is an intoxicating mix of steel-tipped punk and metal. In Bridge Burner’s case, they smash grindcore, crust punk, and sludge, black, and death metal together with visceral ferocity.

Essenitally, that means “Chlorine Eyes” and “Abyssal” feature brutal blasts of hybridized metal. Breakneck riffs, bass, and percussion batter the mind and body as Bridge Burner’s chaotic maelstroms take hold, and “Chlorine Eyes” features additional vocals from Callum Gay (Spook the Horses, Stress), who puts his gullet-shredding holler to raucous use too. Bridge Burner work a marginally slower and doomier angle on “Abyssal" but it's still a brawling cacophony overall.

“Abyssal” and “Chlorine Eyes” both pummel and pulverize, which is no surprise given Bridge Burner's merciless methodology, but the tracks' ultimate strengths lie in the deep catharsis they foster via punishing noise and incandescent rage. I’ve said it before, but Bridge Burner’s volatile fusion of intensity and negativity carves out a clear pathway to liberation. Call it nihilistic transcendence, or purification through misery and darkness, there’s no question that all the caustic chaos on “Abyssal” and “Chlorine Eyes” will help exorcize your endless inner-demons.

If that sounds good, make sure to seek out Bridge Burner’s excellent debut full-length, Null Apostle, which was released last year (and is also available on Bandcamp). Null Apostle is also overflowing with torment, wrath, and unshackled fury. Perfect for the morbid masochist in all of us.

Magic Circle - Departed Souls

By Karen A. Mann. More than three years after electrifying the metal community with Journey Blind, an expertly crafted blend of doom, traditional metal and classic rock, Boston’s somewhat mysterious Magic Circle, have returned with Departed Souls.

By Karen A. Mann


More than three years after electrifying the metal community with Journey Blind, an expertly crafted blend of doom, traditional metal and classic rock, Boston’s somewhat mysterious Magic Circle, have returned with Departed Souls. They haven’t really lost the mystery. Due to obligations with several other bands (Innumerable Forms, Sumerlands, Devil’s Dare, Stone Dagger, Lifeless Dark, Missionary Work, Pagan Altar), they rarely play live, and they still eschew social media. But on this latest album, the band looks further beyond its doomy foundations into the psychedelic world of prog to give us a powerfully mournful ode to those who have departed -- either by leaving this life or by leaving our lives.

However, Magic Circle is pretty blunt with their subject matter and artwork, which features a verdant, overgrown cemetery shown in the golden light of sunset. This is an album about death and endings, but the result is more bittersweet than maudlin, hopeful rather than despairing. A key reason for this is singer Brendan Radigan’s powerful voice, which could take the most mundane material and elevate it to the ethereal. There’s a good reason why he is often compared to the likes of Ronnie James Dio and Ian Gillan. His lyrics are poetic and kaleidoscopic, frequently invoking the seasons and the forces of nature as a sort of general lament on the plight of humanity.

The album opens with its title song, a Trouble-like medium-tempo head-bobber in which Radigan uses the wheel of the seasons to mourn a passing life.

Another harvest of the year
Echoing through time
Shaping the waves of the biosphere
With the cold wind’s sigh.

But Radigan is hardly the band’s only star. Guitarists Chris Corry and Renato Montenegro, trade evocative melodies, searing dual leads and chugging rhythms, often within the same song. It’s not unusual for them to be plodding on with a Sabbath-tinged riff, only to stop and indulge their inner Iron Maiden.

Magic Circle is a band that you can count on to mix things up. Several songs, including “Departed Souls” and “Valley of the Lepers,” follow this recipe. The album begins to unfold in an unexpected, but welcome way on the fourth song, “A Day Will Dawn Without Nightmares.” After a spacey intro, the song floats into an exotic, colorful melody with tablas and a retro-organ riff. Radigan croons about “haunting shadows,” a “glowing eventide” and “silhouetted memories.” It’s a very fitting divider for the album, which then becomes more progressive and a little less doomy, evoking Deep Purple more than Black Sabbath.

The band gives the listener a bit of a rest on “Bird City Blues,” a lush instrumental that clocks in at barely over a minute long, and includes the sound of rolling thunder in the distance. After that, the last song, “Hypnotized,” builds slowly, with Radigan coming in at top volume and power, and leading the listener on a roller coaster ride of emotions. As the riffs crescendo below him, Radigan lets loose:

Never to have or to want.
The will crumbles all.
Mortar and brick battlements
Finally fall.
Hypnotized.
And I hold back the hands of time.

For an album about death, Departed Souls leaves the listener feeling peaceful and uplifted.