For those of you who have not come across this section in my main journal, particularly during Metal Month, let me explain. On the Metal Archives website it's possible to select a random band, and the idea here is to do that, and then listen to something from that band and comment on it. Unfortunately, a large percentage of the bands listed are either unsigned, broken up or never released anything beyond a demo cassette, or are so obscure that it's impossible to track down their music, resulting in rather more misfires than fires for me in this process. Still, perhaps my luck is about to turn. So come with me as for the first time in this journal dedicated to all things metal we take our first fall into
As theoretically, if I kept having no luck this could go on forever, I've set a limit of four tries per session. So if I don't come across a band I can review on the fourth try, then it's marked up as a blank and we'll try again next time. But hopefully it won't get to that. Okay then, let's click
and see what the Metal Gods and Fate have in store for us...
All right. I would not hold out too much hope for a band who got together in 2005, released one EP in 2007 and are signed to a label called Dead Royalty, but we shall see. A death metal band hailing from San Jose, California, Memoirs' ony EP does not inspire confidence in the possibility of their longevity either:
Les Morts (The Dead) and so it proves: they are not available. So we must push the button a second time, and see where we end up.
Well, this is even better!
A Power Metal band from South Korea! They have two albums but who will bet against my being able to find either? No of course I can't, and it doesn't help that their band name apparently means something in Spanish, so plenty of videos of bullfights for some reason.
Add "South Korea" into the search parameters and you get, you guessed it, a lot of political videos about Korea. However, halfway down there is one video which appears to be one of their songs, so let's give this a blast before we move on.
Yeah, sound more like an eighties NWOBHM band to me, and not a particularly good one. Actually, it gets a little better near the end. Meh. Moving on.
Hardly seems a tough heavy metal name, does it? Constancia? Well these guys hail from Sweden and do at least have two albums, one of which was released only two years ago, so there might be some hope here.
Well what do you know? Both albums available on Spotify! So this is where we stop then.
Name: Constancia
Nationality:: Swedish
Subgenre: Progressive Metal
Born: 2008
Lineup: David Fremberg (Vocals)
Janne Stark (Guitars)
Mikael Rosengren (Keyboards)
Linus Abrahamson (Bass)
Peter “Trumpeter” Svensson (Drums)
Albums: Lost and Gone (2009),
Final Curtain (2015)
Live albums: None
Collections/Boxets: None
I think this is the first time ever since I've been doing this that I've come up with a progressive metal band. Whether or not they're any good is another matter, of course. Mind you, with comparisons being made to the sound of bands like City Boy, Trillion and Styx, well, this just may be verging more on AOR territory than metal, but we'll see.
Anyway, they only have two albums, so it's not a hard choice: I've decided to go for the most recent offering.
Final Curtain – Constancia – 2015 (Melodic Rock Records)
Hmm. Sounds a bit like a synthpop band playing Riverside to me as the album opens with the somewhat cringeworthily-titled “Don't tread on my heart”, and it's very AOR, don't really see any metal in this at all. Good enough song, very keyboard-heavy, good vocal harmonies, good hook: AOR in other words. “Spectres” is a little heavier, a little more guitar-oriented, but I still don't hear metal here. Not much change in “Way to life”; I mean, it's a decent song, but I've no idea why it's listed under any sort of metal because it is most assuredly not. Good ending to the track, then “Live a lie” wears its melodic rock heart very much on its sleeve with a big bursting chorus to open, powerful vocal harmonies and a great hook. Vocalist David Fremberg can certainly belt them out, but there's more to metal than a powerful singer. This really is very light fare, and I'm already worried about a song called “Hang tough”. Sigh.
I was right to have my concerns. And it doesn't get any better as it goes on. Too many keyboard arpeggios taking centre stage, such as in “Hold on my heart” (about as non-metal a song title as I can think of), little in the way of proper guitar solos, no aggression despite the band's founder coining the term “melogressive metal” for this music, which is not only stupid but entirely inaccurate. “Lies within lies” tries hard to be tough and aggressive, bless its heart, but fails most embarrassingly, while “Little fighter” does its best too. These are not terribly bad songs, not really, but it's just they are so far removed from anything any self-respecting metalhead would consider metal it's almost funny. These last two do at least cut out the warbling keyboard and close harmonies and concentrate more on guitars that almost grind, and there are solos, but it's still a poor substitute.
It really doesn't get too much better on the last two tracks, which kind of passed me by. It's a pity really, as I think there are some half-decent ideas in there, but the guys don't seem to be able to decide what to do with them.
Track listing and Ratings
(Note: this is not an indication of what I thought of the album, rather, what I thought of it as a (so-called) metal album.)
Don't tread on my heart
Spectres
Way to life
Live a lie
Hang tough
Lucidia
Hold on my heart
Lies within lies
Little fighter
In your eyes
Final curtain
If I were reviewing this for an AOR journal – now, there's an idea – no! No, Trollheart! Down! You've already got more journals going than any human being could possibly expect to ... drop it! I said, drop it! Yeah, well, I guess, but still ... anyway, to return to my original train of thought: if this was being reviewed as an AOR album I still wouldn't be enthusing about it but I could be a little less critical of it. It's not a bad album by any means. But as a metal album, it sucks big time. It's nothing close to metal. I just don't see it. If they had coined a different term – say, melopassive rock or something – then maybe. But meloggressive? Nah.
So for the first time ever all I can award here is
