January 8, 2007
News for all yelworC fans out there
Important news for all: The new album from yelworC named Icolate will (hopefully, maybe, etc) be released June 2007. It’s a painful wait since it was supposed to have been release earlier, but it reminded me to find and listen to the 2004 album Trinity. I think I selected Trinity to be the best album of 2004 once, and I see no reason to change that opinion now, It’s definitely one of the strongest album so far in music history… We’ll see how long that hold…
Turns out the album was very likable after all. It sounds very much like Skinny Puppy, but in a good way, the have recreated (as opposed to stealing) the sound and feeling of Skinny Puppy in the good days. And there is nothing wrong with continuing where they left of. The vocals are also clearly in the Ogre tradition, even the distorsions are about the same…
British band Mesh is finally back with a new album, the last album came out in 2002 and has been a favorite ever since. After some amount of record label trouble (record labels seem to be all band’s worst enemy…). It seems that the band has used the extra time wisely and produced their strongest album yet. Only good tracks! superb! And as usual I got the limeted edition including the DVD with a ‘making of’ feature, 3 live tracks, 3 videos, and some extra audio. In a very nice book-like package. Very nice to see the guys work and play live, it’s been maybe 7 years since seeing them live the last time, and 10 years since the first time. You also get to see what Mark hides under his hat…
I saw one of my old Swedish favorite bands Covenant live in Helsingborg at the release party last week for this new album, and I really thought they were bad… (I’ve seen them a number of times since the great appearance at Emmabodafestivalen 1995) but I had already ordered the album, so I tried to keep hopes up. And luckily the album is pretty good, although it has some crappy track, just like their two previous albums had. Their first album is the most solid one, maybe because it’s their fastest. Anyway, skyshaper is a lot better than their previous two albums.
Interesting collaboration between Fiendflug, the leading instrumental electro artist and Supreme Court, a promising band with pretty good but somewhat lacking songs. Therefore these artists can compliment each other perfectly, and they have. The characteristic Feindflug songs have vocals and the Supreme Court songs have been improved by Fiendflug’s instrumental skills. All songs are good. Need I say that both bands are German…
Swedish Spetsnaz yet again presents old-school hard-hitting groove, although not as old-school as before… The sound has been updated to Nitzer Ebb 2 years later, and more varied. This is also an artist that avoids bad tracks by keeping up the pace, fast tracks can’t fail as slow tracks can 
. I especially like the punkish song Uniform and Kindred with its clean vocals for a change.
Pride and Fall, one of the few good Norwegian artists is back with the follow-up to their superb first album. Actually I can’t think of any better Norwegian acts, but Apoptygma Berzerk and Bel Canto has had their moments. I really like the sound on both their album, hard, fast and sometimes complex beats with slower, soft, melancholic vocals. There have not been any bad tracks on any of their two albums, and I can’t think of anyone with a sound quite like theirs. Their lyrics are rather hard to comprehend, not that I really care about the content of lyrics as long as it sounds nice, but there are some memorable moments:
2005 was a weak year coming as a calm after a good 2004. 2004 saw fantastic releases from act like 