March 2009

  • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Tuska Open Air Metal Festival 2008, June 27,28 and 29 2008, Helsinki Finland, Kaisaniemi Park

 

Tuska 2008 

This past summer I decided to attend Tuska Open Air since I was traveling around the area and really wanted to attend this festival for the past few years, but because of schedule issues I was never able to make it.

Having attended other festivals in Europe and other places, I was convinced of going to Tuska after seeing their first acts confirmed, and I made travel arrangements since early February. The complete line up was as follows:

Amon Amarth, Before the Dawn*, Behemoth, Carcass, Diablo, Dimmu Borgir, Discard, Dream Evil, Dying Fetus, Entombed, Fields of the Nephilim, Ghost Brigade, Job For A Cowboy, Kalmah, Killswitch Engage, Kiuas, Kreator, KYPCK, Mokoma, Morbid Angel, Nile, Noxa, Primordial, Shade Empire, Slayer, Sonata Arctica, Sotajumala, Stam1na, The Scourger, The Sorrow, Tracedawn and Týr

* Before the Dawn was added after Korpliklaani had to cancel due to their instruments being held out at some airport in Belgium (since they played the previous day in Graspop Metal meeting).
  • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Northern Kings - Reborn (2008)

The second album from this all-star Finnish band brings us 12 more cover songs from a very “unique” group of songs. The band’s adaptation of the songs is very nice in most cases, but some of them do not have a good sound. However, all instruments blend well together and are very well combined (if you ignore the fact that the songs are covers). The combination of 4 different vocalists make them have a very dynamic arsenal of vocal styles and quality, the 2 most notable voices are Marco Hielata and Tony Kako’s since their style sets them apart from the other 2 singers (Jarkko Ahola and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto).

While this album is a good metal cover’s album, it takes a while to adapt to, and sometimes you even need to go and see what song they are actually covering since you can’t distinguish them easily.

 
  • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Vanguard - Hydralchemy (2009)

This band first album was named Succumbra and it was released in 2005 after winning a contest in Wacken Open Air. The band can be classified as dark metal, since they have so many different elements in their music which, by the way, are blended to perfection in most songs.

This album shows a great deal of maturity from the band in their musical composition. All of the instruments complement each other perfectly creating powerful melodies in each of the songs.

 
  • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Obscura - Cosmogenesis (2009)

I’m very impressed with this band from Germany. Cosmogenesis is their second full length release in 7 years, and it’s great! I usually don’t go praising bands for nothing and I’m not easily impressed either, but this album is close to perfection.

The band, as their myspace page mentions, is a team of virtuoso musicians. Most of the time bands exaggerate on their pages, but in this case, the definition is dead on. I can’t find a weak point in this band’s lineup, since all musicians contribute their skills to the album in equal amounts.

 
  • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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Entwine - Painstained (2009)

Well…. we have here another release of Finnish gothic rock/metal. Entwine, in my opinion, is a very close contender to HIM’s gothic rock/metal supremacy crown. This band keeps getting better in every release they put out, however, in my opinion, their main downfall is that their vocalist sounds too plain and uninspired (compared to Ville Valo and others).

This album is petty good in general with great catchy songs and everything, but it just does not move me anymore, and it feels like I’ve heard the same album/style/band when I listen to a new release or a new band in this tired genre.

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