Avatar delivers melodic death metal done right
Those fans who took to the offbeat sensibilities of 2018’s Avatar Country and 2019’s The King Live in Paris might be a tad surprised when they spin Avatar’s 10th release. Listeners with a longer relationship to the Gothenburg, Sweden quintet will note the similarity of some of the new material to the thrashier content of 2006’s Thoughts of No Tomorrow. Of course, producer Jay Ruston (Stone Sour, Slipknot, Anthrax) keeps it all sounding clean and clear.
In other words, the band is back with another serving of fullon melodic death metal.
What makes Avatar stand out in a crowded genre is the band’s razor-sharp arrangements and singer Johannes Eckerstrom’s impressive delivery. Over the new album’s 10 tracks, the band — Eckerstrom, guitarists Tim Ohrstrom and Jonas Jarlsby, bassist Henrik Sandelin and drummer John Alfredsson — showcases impressive musical chops and energy. For a band that is soon entering its second decade together, these hard-rocking Swedes seem poised to become one of the genre’s biggest acts.
Here are five things to know about Hunter Gatherer:
1.
Silence in the Age of Apes
If Avatar Country toyed about with imaginary lands and rulers, Hunter Gatherer posits a picture of a less-than-smiley-face future. This whip-snap opening tune just pummels at you like Master of Puppets-era Metallica. With its crowd-chant vocals and relentless charge, the song sets a tone that carries through the album. Plus, the group headbanging in the video RULEZ! 2.
A Secret Door
OK, there are a lot of requirements to be a heavy metal vocalist, even including up to yodelling. But whistling is a new one. Yet without the dark, whistled hook that runs through this moody tune, it wouldn’t be nearly as good a song. As it stands, the album’s one longer tune (six minutes) comes across like a concert signature.
3.
Scream Until You Wake Up
The wall of noise driving this song is almost more post-punk than metal (the Cult comes to mind). But it lives up to its title with the vocals becoming increasingly panicked and desperate until the chorus harmonizes into a raw-throated howl. Some awesome sludge-laden rhythm guitar interplay really can’t hide the fact that this is a song that could have hit top 10 for any number of Sunset Strip acts in the hair-metal era. 4.
Justice
As stated earlier, this is a very, very tight band. No track probably better demonstrates this than this one. When the guitars start a rhythm on their own over the lead vocal, the way the rest of the band brings itself back in is delightfully precise. One of the best guitar solos on the album hits at around the four-minute mark.
5.
Gun
If the twang of Avatar Country was a surprise, so is this breathy piano ballad. It’s a sad lament for losing children to war, to guns and their aftermath. So, yeah, it’s not going to make any love-song compilation. Black Sabbath got away with Changes, right?
Also out this week:
Foundation | Ninja Tune
This new project is the work of Grammy-nominated Harrison
Mills and Clayton Knight (ODESZA) and Aria-platinum-selling producer Tom Stell of Golden Features. Formed after the members met at a festival in Perth, Australia, the group sounds like it’s been at it a long while. Just check out the dance-happy Heart Attack (featuring lau.ra), a bouncing EDM tune with just the right amount of dreaminess mixed in to make you move and think. Other tracks such as Vaults or Call Out are less pop-oriented. Overall, songs such as Keep Moving stand out more than the purely instrumental tunes.
Generation Antichrist | AFM Records
The U.K. thrash veterans are back to relentlessly shred on nine songs that sound really good turned really loud. The precision and pace hammered out in Strike Fast Strike Hard or A Perfect Day to Die is textbook thrash of the sort you don’t hear as much of these days. Naturally, the subject matter is pointing fingers at all the usual subjects — authority (Bow Down to the Clowns), religion (Religiousuicide) and Sauron (All Seeing Eye) — get amps-at-11 treatments.
Stay Tuned | bandcamp.com
Local scene fixture Rob Thompson has entertained everyone from hockey fans to hardcore drunks with all the dedication and devotion of a journeyman player. Whether he’s recounting less-than- positive meetings with rednecks (See You in Hell) or two-stepping his way through a laundry list of band and performer names that made their way into the record bins at Value Village, there’s always a good bit of humour and sense of being near the breaking point on all the songs. Ska, country, rockabilly and punk-folk, Thompson is someone who can put a personal stamp on most genres and, when it sounds as fun as Donde Esta El Bano; all bueno. This is boozing boogie.
Cell Walk | Songlines
This gem of a recording pairs up the formidable duo of bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Wayne Horvitz for a session of lovely pieces that are improvised, composed or straddling points in between. Having worked together for 20 years in Horvitz’s chamber jazz group the Gravitas Quartet, which includes Vancouver cellist Peggy Lee, they speak one another’s musical language. For every outsider jaunt such as Deep Well Well, there is an equally near, neoclassical feeling piece such as Laughter or Ironbound. Horvitz is always a solid player, but it’s exciting to hear Schoenbeck take the bassoon in such interesting directions.