The Armed - Only Love

By Justin C. The Armed is a band that's been floating around in my life for a while now. I think I may have first heard their EP Young & Beautiful as early as 2011, or it might have been their split with Tharsis They, a thrashy hardcore band whose album Ominous Silence

By Justin C.


The Armed is a band that's been floating around in my life for a while now. I think I may have first heard their EP Young & Beautiful as early as 2011, or it might have been their split with Tharsis They, a thrashy hardcore band whose album Ominous Silence got positive attention in the metal blogs I frequent. Whenever it was, I've always been charmed--if "charmed" is the right word for such a vicious-sounding band--by The Armed's yearly EP releases.

I always thought of The Armed as grind, although the band self-identifies as punk, pure and simple. Put on "Witness," the opening track of The Armed's second full-length, Only Love, and I think you'll see why I find the band to be at least somewhat grind-minded. The furious electronics, pyrotechnic percussion, and raw, screamed vocals certainly fit in with a more chaotic genre tag. But on this, their second album, the band has expanded their sound a bit from previous efforts. The solid blasts of punk/grind fury now see some cleaner vocals creeping in. Exceptions abound, though. "Fortune Daughter" features some understated melodic vocal lines, but they're contrasted with vicious female vocals from a member who may have been added to duel with the pre-existing male vocalist. (Or she might have been in the band all along. As far as I can tell, The Armed has never been forthcoming with who the members actually are.)

But if you're afraid my description of Only Love sounds like a band starting to go soft, fear not. "Apperception" is a full-bore assault. A casual listener might think the percussionist and his entire drum kit fell down the stairs during the recording while miraculously keeping the beat, but repeat listens reveal fills on top of more fills. There's almost a cathartic build to the song that veers into "sunny" territory, while somehow still being full of fury, which is a juxtaposition the band also executes flawlessly elsewhere, like in "Middle Homes."

Genre debates between punk and metal aside (Encyclopaedia Metallum does not include them, for whatever that's worth), I have a hard time imagining anyone with a passing interest in grind OR punk wouldn't dig what this band is doing, and unlike other bands of a similar spastic ilk, Only Love showcases a band that's evolving and growing. I heartily recommend checking out their entire back catalog, but their newest is a good place to start.

Gatekeeper - East of Sun

By Calen Henry. East of Sun is Gatekeeper's debut album, following a string of EPs and splits. The Vancouver band plays epic speed metal adding grit and velocity to the grandiosity of bands like Atlantean Kodex and Solstice. They enter a crowded field

By Calen Henry.

Artwork by Duncan Storr.

East of Sun is Gatekeeper's debut album, following a string of EPs and splits. The Vancouver band plays epic speed metal adding grit and velocity to the grandiosity of bands like Atlantean Kodex and Solstice. They enter a crowded field, with traditional and doom metal bands being a dime a dozen right now, but they manage to stand out.

Gatekeeper nail both "epic" and "speed" in their interpretation of metal, the epic side often slowing down into doom territory. The guitars nail double kick backed full tilt riffs and slower drawn out melodic doom with solos to match either style, be it aggressive fret-board pyrotechnics or mournful slow-burn lines. Vocalist Jean-Pierre Abboud is equally well suited to either style balancing technique and feeling. He shows great melodic and emotional range matching the flow of epic metal, but possesses a grit and "close to the edge" quality that's perfect when they speed things up but also works for slower passages backed by harmonized "aahs".

The deft merging of styles is matched by songwriting chops. Gatekeeper doesn't really do anything new but they write such great songs, jammed with sing-along choruses and ripping solos that they don't need to. "Blade of Cimmeria" opens the album with a rousing speed metal scream, immediately gripping the listener, then running through some of the faster material on the album, "North Wolves", and "Warrior without Fear". By the time they slow things down and get really epic on "Ninefold Muse", you're hooked.

The vocals sound great and the guitars have just the right crunch, but the mix robs the band of some of their hard earned epicness. The drums are too far back in the mix, and the master is too compressed to allow cranking it to compensate. The band deserves a better mix to really showcase their excellent material.

Still, it's a great album. Edge of Sun positions Gatekeeper as a strong band and is a hugely impressive debut, not to be missed by any fans of the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal.

Ails - The Unraveling

By Justin C. It was about this time last year that I was giddy over two new songs by Ails, a band fronted by ex-Ludicra members Laurie Shanaman and Christy Cather. Hearing these two together again in a new black metal project is a delight

By Justin C.

Artwork by Andrei Bouzikov.

It was about this time last year that I was giddy over two new songs by Ails, a band fronted by ex-Ludicra members Laurie Shanaman and Christy Cather. Hearing these two together again in a new black metal project is a delight, and Ails' first full-length, The Unraveling, provided everything I wanted and more.

It's tempting to compare and contrast this band with Ludicra. That legacy looms large. And after all, if you put Robert Plant and Jimmy Page together, the end result is undoubtedly going to be a bit Zeppelin-ish, and the combination of vocals from Shanaman and Cather on top of Cather's guitar work can't help but be a bit Ludicr-ish. Album opener "The Echoes Waned" even has a lovely acoustic guitar interlude with some heavy picking, not unlike what I noted way back when (in my very first review here) of Ludicra's Hollow Psalms. But the more I nerded out on musical analysis, the more I realized it was a bit unfair to both the other members of Ludicra and Ails. And truth be told, that lovely familiarity is mixed with plenty of new sounds.

"Any Spark of Life" mashes up tremolo and palm-muted, thrashy goodness in guitar work that's both tempestuous and melodic at the same time, and that's coupled with Shanaman's always-ferocious screams on some bleak material: "The only reflections I can see / are the dark circles underneath / eyes that harness the sadness." "Mare Weighs Down" brings in a sense of horror movie soundtrack with lyrics about nightmares: "Falling into slumber brings no peace of mind / it stirs up horrors." "The Ruin" takes a more feral turn before the album closes out with "Bitter Past," a track that ranges over blasts of guitar, clean vocals, and breaks where Shanaman's shrieks are allowed to howl over just the rhythm section. The lyrics themselves aren't in the least bit coy: "Forgive to forget / forgive to move on / spoken so eloquently / but chronically wrong." The music burns in your ears with extreme metal's version of catchiness, and the words forego convoluted Satanist texts for emotions and experiences anyone can relate to.

At 41 minutes, this album is short, but only in the sense that I want so much more. The length is actually downright perfect. Easy to absorb in one sitting, but with plenty of things to chew on for repeat listens. Have I written this as a bit of a fan boy? Yeah, probably, but the internet is welcome to decry my lack of "objectivity" in my subjective opinion. If you know Ludicra, you'll want to get on this. If you don't, you'll want to get on this, then go back and get your hands on everything Shanaman and Cather have done.