{"id":14,"date":"1998-08-29T09:46:44","date_gmt":"1998-08-29T15:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/?p=14"},"modified":"2018-11-10T15:04:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T21:04:23","slug":"movie-the-yellow-birds-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/blog\/1998\/08\/29\/movie-the-yellow-birds-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcturus \u2013 La Masquerade Infernale"},"content":{"rendered":"

For months I\u2019d been reading about this disc, Arcturus\u2019s La Masquerade Infernale<\/em>. It had picked up more \u201910?s and perfect scores than any album I could remember, so I obviously bought it as soon as I saw a copy. As it turns out, it\u2019s a progressive metal masterpiece, so I figured I\u2019d review it here. I haven\u2019t written a review in a while, I just sorta feel like writing one, and I think I\u2019m going to try my best to ape the LarryD format.<\/p>\n

The style-<\/p>\n

Hrmm\u2026well, here\u2019s the hardest part right at the beginning. As I said, it\u2019s progressive metal. \ud83d\ude42 Of course, some people think of progressive metal as metal with operatic singing, complex songs, intricate playing, keyboards, and all that other stuff, as exemplified by bands like Dream Theater. Then there\u2019s other people who think that it\u2019s music to which few comparisons can be drawn, music that is at the cutting edge of the metal genre, like Amorphis or Opeth. La Masquerade Infernale<\/em> is one of those rare albums that fits both definitions equally well. The band describes the style as \u201cFaust Rock\u201d, and that\u2019s as good as any term I could come up with. But while the style is completely unique, there are parts with amazing similarities to Dream Theater\u2019s Awake<\/em>…it has some low guitar\/bass parts very much like in \u201cMirror\/Lie\u201d, and keyboards that could easily appear in \u201cScarred\u201d or \u201cSpace Dye Vest\u201d. Anyway, to give some concrete terms to the style, it\u2019s mostly metal, with lots of edgy melody. But then it\u2019s all mixed up with a whole lot of \u201cweirdness\u201d. That \u201cweirdness\u201d comes in the form of complex song structures, quick time\/mood changes, and interesting sounds and effects. It ends up being something majestic, powerful, and above all, frighteningly dark.<\/p>\n

The production-<\/p>\n

Someone made a post about this album a couple days ago (which partially induced me to post this now) and said that the production was a bit muddy. I dunno, maybe I\u2019ve just been listening to too much crappy black metal, but to my ears, it sounds great. Overall it has a very warm, glossy sound to it. And the whole album seems to have about a thousand layers. In addition to the usual instruments, a string quartet, a flute, and a cornet are used from time to time, and they all mesh right into the flow of things. There\u2019s also quite a bit of effects thrown in from that \u201cweirdness\u201d bin, like strange percussive noises and short backwards sounds. Once you get an idea of what they were going for, it doesn\u2019t seem a bit overdone\u2026everything works together to create this amazing mood.<\/p>\n

The singer-<\/p>\n

The vocals are clearly a focal point of this album. The majority are provided by G. Wolf (aka Garm, who has also sung in Ulver and Borknagar), in a style that could only be called \u201ctheatrical\u201d. Basically, you get the feeling that the guy should be up on stage in an opera. Most of the stuff that he sings is on the low end (which is what makes it so unique), although he does vary his range a good bit. And unlike his previous work, there isn\u2019t a single example of harsh black metal vocals on this album. In fact, his voice is crystal clear the whole way, LarryD should love it. Lead vocals on one song and backups elsewhere are provided by Simen Hestnaes. Like Garm, his vocals are also very theatrical (and clean), but in the higher range, and much more frantic sounding. The effect is incredible when they sing together. I don\u2019t think a singing style can be called \u201cunique\u201d too often, but it definitely is in this case.<\/p>\n

The band-<\/p>\n

Besides the vocals, a clear standout in this band is the keyboards. Played by Steinar Sverd Johnsen (also in Covenant, which also has great keyboards), the keys are an integral part to the whole sound, but they never try to be a second guitar, which is nice. There\u2019s plenty of piano stuff, orchestral-type sounds, and then, all kinds of \u201cweird\u201d things. The guitar is cool, most of the time not getting in the way of everything else, but sometimes stepping forward for very flowing solos. Bass is nice, nothing I notice too much, but it forms another layer in there. And finally, the drums are provided by Jan Axel Von Blomberg, aka the legendary Hellhammer. I recently saw him play with Mayhem at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and he\u2019s amazing. Surprisingly, there are a few seconds of Mayhem-style blast beat on this album, but the majority of it is just very tasteful, well played drumming. There is a good bit of double-bass work, but it\u2019s usually rather subdued. Two of the tracks are mostly instrumentals, and they make you see that the vocals aren\u2019t the only thing that\u2019s great about this album.<\/p>\n

The comments-<\/p>\n

Basically, I\u2019m really curious what other people around here might think of this album. I\u2019ve tried to hide this fact a little bit so people wouldn\u2019t be prejudiced, but Arcturus\u2019s first album was mostly a black metal album. Actually, like many \u201cblack metal\u201d albums, the music wasn\u2019t black metal at all, just the vocals. Anyway, I didn\u2019t really know what to expect when I got this album, beyond \u201cweird\u201d, but the more I listen to it, the more I think that it\u2019s something that people at Perpetual Motion should be going nuts over. The background of the band is the only reason I can think of that this album isn\u2019t being hailed as one of the top progressive metal albums of all time. Oh, it also seems really hard to find for some reason, which sucks, because everyone should hear this album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months I\u2019d been reading about this disc, Arcturus\u2019s La Masquerade Infernale. It had picked up more \u201910?s and perfect scores than any album I could remember, so I obviously bought it as soon as I saw a copy. As it turns out, it\u2019s a progressive metal masterpiece, so I figured I\u2019d review it here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}