What on earth is that?

[davidn]

Well, apparently the new Sepultura album's been released early:



I'm really not sure what to make of Kamelot, now. When I discovered them they were a power metal band that had the unusual property of being American but was fairly accessible by the usual standards. After Karma, they started off experimenting with more involved concepts (starting off as they meant to go on with a two-album interpretation of Faust) and incorporating more and more non-traditional instruments. Now, nobody can really agree on what they even are any more - their albums are called symphonic/progressive/power in various different combinations and quantities, and as their music has been getting gloomier and more pretentious, so has their album artwork. I'm pretty sure your radio will start bursting static when you take this out of its shrinkwrap.

The new tracklist gives away some of the mood, as well:

1. The Great Pandemonium
2. If Tomorrow Came
3. Dear Editor
4. The Zodiac
5. Hunter's Season
6. House on a Hill
7. Necropolis
8. My Train of Thoughts
9. Seal of Woven Years
10. Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. I: Incubus
11. Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. II: So Long
12. Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. III: All is Over
13. Poetry for the Poisoned, Pt. IV: Dissection
14. Once Upon a Time
15. Where the Wild Roses Grow
16. Thespian Drama

Cheerful, isn't it? "Dear Editor" is a bit of a curious standout, though. But keeping with their "accessible" theme from the early 2000s, another thing about the tracklist is that there's hardly anything above four minutes long - it's especially odd that they split up the title track into four separate sections, because the nine-minute song they comprise is positively manageable in comparison to what some people in the genre get away with.

One last thing you can do to assess the mood of a release is to look at the latest band shot - I promise that like I said above, they used to seem fairly normal. This time, with his beard having evolved into a full Blackadder II, Khan has a look of sheer unadulterated fury unmatched since the Sim City 2000 transport minister.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I almost hate to say it, but d'you suppose the track split is just bearing in mind iTunes' fixed-rate-per-'song' pricing?

[davidn]

That would be unusually sneaky! It's a thought... what are iTunes' fixed rates, now? I get the feeling that for a 16-track album I might as well just buy the physical copy, seeing as you then get all the songs DRM-free, and... the physical copy.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

It used to be $10 per album, and $1 per song if you wanted them a la carte.. I know that songs have gone up to $1.30, but I haven't checked if whole albums are more too.

Also I think iTunes has ditched the DRM! Not sure if it's universal... But the physical copy is nice. :)

[feralmuse.livejournal.com]

Buh, what? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxrRb0BCb6A

I really loved Karma, but never looked around for any of their other music so I wasn't aware of this shift. If it wasn't for my Silent Hill obsession they would have totally lost me with this, but the visuals in the video look straight out of the SH movie, so I can't help but be intrigued, if confused.

[davidn]

Right, first of all... why is Lisa wearing a KFC tub on her head? :)

I can definitely imagine that this would be a shock to anyone who's only seen the Karma era! It was actually rather a surprise to me, too, seeing an album cover from them that wasn't so much power metal as... Dante's Inferno. They've never been particularly cheerful (just look at their lyrics) but they sort of... covered it up less every time.

The effects in the video in the preview look very impressive (especially when compared to the rest of the genre and the sort of home video attempts that Rhapsody usually do), but it's odd that the preview itself is rather low-budget... that floaty scratchy text looks like it was being pulled about in Windows Movie Maker. There's probably some sort of unwritten rule about all this.

[feralmuse.livejournal.com]

I used to have a regular icon of Lisa in that same pose, but it was cropped in such a way that two of my friends already thought she had a bucket on her head so... It's become an icon for equal parts happy and 'derp' xD

I was thinking the same thing about the text and transitions in that video. They were so bad it was disruptive, and I wanted to try to peek behind them or wipe them off the screen or something. Shoo, let me see the interesting bits again!

[kjorteo]

Personally, I think the monster truck announcer is my favorite part. That's just... I know that there is a lot of ridiculousness in my preferred genre (just look at all the fake album covers I did,) but that's the first time I've seen anyone do that.

Anyway, as far as Kamelot's recent gloominess, I think this about sums it up.

[davidn]

It's so... incongruent! I'm unused to hearing that style of voice on a metal video, but I'm not totally sure what I was expecting, either - I'm not used to seeing television-style adverts for them at all. Iron Maiden's one for Edward the Great felt similarly weird, and they had Doctor Who.

[igorium.livejournal.com]

A russian power band, their music is still the same (lame)

[feralmuse.livejournal.com]

Dear guy on the far right of the second photo: GET OUT OF THE 80's.
Dear everyone else: .....BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

This has been a public service announcement from someone who needs more sleep.

[davidn]

I really couldn't stop laughing at the difference :) It's as if they somehow managed to actually go backwards in time twenty years between the photos (especially hair-bandana-eyeliner... thing on the right!) That's quite an image change.

[kjorteo]

The guy on the right is pure Motley Crue, and the three guys in hats are clearly trying out for Limp Bizkit. The mismatch is so wonderful, I love it.

[kjorteo]

I feel compelled to remind you that even with Khan's new Mirror Mirror evil twin goatee, I still think no one does "look of sheer unadulterated fury" better than Joacim Cans.



The cameraman murdered his family, it's the only explanation.

[davidn]

I was just trying to remember the name of that today! He is... dangerously intense, for all four minutes (which is presumably why he's been shut in a spiky room somewhere).

As for the latest style shift by the possessed Silent Hill version of Kamelot, I read today that Thomas Youngblood said of it "I recently lost my mother and to be honest it was very hard on me. So there are some melancholy moods reflected on this album." Not their usual selves at all, then.

[kjorteo]

They keep him locked up because he's one of those "I'll show them all, mwa ha ha" types who, if left to his own devices, would probably get his revenge on the world by blowing it up. (Complete with >:O face when he activates the Wile E. Coyote plunger, naturally.)

As for Kamelot, considering they seriously tried to pass The Pendulous Fall off as a happy song (the lyrics are about someone contemplating suicide, but they tried to sell it in an interview as a Lyrical Dissonance sort of thing with bouncy upbeat music behind it, when... no it isn't; the music fits perfectly,) I'm actually a little afraid of what they'll do if they're feeling a little down this time. (It is worth noting that last time Thomas Youngblood lost a parent, we got Don't You Cry.)

[davidn]

Become Sepultura, if the album cover is anything to go by... I actually went back over the previous covers and noticed that they started using that sort of decayed plain white logo starting from The Black Halo, and... how a band presents itself in the name usually says a lot about the general mood of it.

The interview that I pointed at during my write-up of Ghost Opera is still there, and misguidedly describes Silence of the Darkness as "quite a fun track". I liked "Don't You Cry" among Karma, because it was the... more morbid one on an album of mostly fairly upbeat songs, but I think they just really are that unaware of themselves now.

[kjorteo]

Basically, what it all comes down to is that, out of everyone I've been skewering with my fake album covers, all signs point to Kamelot not being the first to prove theirs wrong. :)