Black Halo (Import) (CD)

• Category:  Music  »  Hard Rock & Metal  »  Progressive Metal
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: January 31, 2006
• Label: Dreambeat (Hong Kong)
• UPC: 8809046083297
• WAPI (Tower ID): 105975250
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Alternative Press (p.144) - 5 out of 5 - "The band's wondrously twisted, light-speed angularity is still in glorious effect."
Magnet (pp.86-8) - "Jumping, popping bass lines, reverberating with each motion up and down the scale, are all over the album's lower reaches, providing a thrillingly unstable foundation for the already-existent chaos atop it..."

Crimes is Blood Brothers' V2 debut, and their fourth album overall. The quintet is still led by blaring, interwoven vocals of Johnny Whitney and Jordan Blilie. One screams and yelps in a very high register, the other is not so high, but still great at screaming. The Brothers' basic sound is jagged and post-punk-derived, full of hyper percussion and jerking, screeching guitars. But while this might sound like chaos, it's not. Like Whirlwind Heat or the Icarus Line, the Blood Brothers always provide a counterweight to their noisier, freakier sides. Depending on the song, that weight can either be furious rock energy, laptop experimentation, or pianos and accordions used in illegal ways. Crimes keeps a tight lid on the nervous energy that's always defined the group, channeling it into aggressive songs that often suggest the damaged, exciting grooves of vintage Brainiac (particularly "Teen Heat" and "Trash Flavored Trash"), as well as subtler numbers with atmosphere to spare. Though it periodically explodes into a metal-ish racket, "Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck" pulsing rhythms and arching guitar lines mostly follow the contours of the dance-punk scene en vogue in the early 2000s. The title track skulks along with a plodding bassline and lyrics about robbing liquor stores and wandering through landfills; it eventually recedes into the rich tones of a Wurlitzer, and the vocalists' quiet sighs. "Celebrator" begins as an a cappella dirge, but detonates unexpectedly into raucous triple-time. Other highlights include the lurching, grinding opener, "Feed Me to the Forest," the frantic, piano-driven "Peacock Skeleton With Feathers," and "My First Kiss at the Public Execution," which finds an incredibly sharp chorus hook in between its bloodcurdling screams. ~ Johnny Loftus

Much to their credit, American progressive metal stalwarts Kamelot have consistently tread a very distinctive and personal path throughout their career, paying little mind to popular trends or passing fashions, and, as a result, gaining a fan following more dedicated than most. These fans won't be disappointed with the band's seventh studio album, 2005's typically accomplished and eclectic Black Halo, which immediately bucks ordinary metallic expectations when it chooses the majestic, slow-building "March of Mephisto" as an opener ahead of second track "When the Lights Go Down"'s opening of the power metal floodgates. Of course that's because, despite often running in similar performing and recording circles (this album, in fact, being cut in Germany) as Europe's power metal elite, Kamelot easily transcend most subgenre limitations by looking both backwards and forwards, to classic heavy metal and progressive metal horizons, respectively. Enter the band's on-going study of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poetic dramatization of Faust, a project carried over from their previous album, 2003's Epica, and interwoven into much of the band's own concepts here. Much like a three-act play, these 14 cuts appear to be clustered in accordance with a vague overall plot, and come partitioned by three interludes, the second of which is particularly interesting and original for featuring visitor Cinzia Rizzo singing in Italian. In fact, guest appearances abound throughout Black Halo, with, among others, Dimmu Borgir throat Shagrath and Epica siren Simone Simons both lending their voices and characters to a song or two, and Stratovarius keyboardist Jens Johansson adding his remarkable talents to a couple of tunes as well. But, no matter how many luminaries drop in, it's ever the members of Kamelot themselves holding down the fort on masterful examples of regal, often symphonically-enhanced heavy metal like "The Haunting (Somewhere in Time)," the title track, and the stunning, eight-minute album centerpiece "Memento Mori." And in vocalist Roy Khan -- quite simply one of the most versatile and expressive in any rock field -- Kamelot have a truly difference-making force (see his tour de force in the glorious ballad "Abandoned"), and one which, for all his formidable lung capacity, never threatens to overwhelm the efforts of his equally talented bandmates. Sure enough, by the time it finally finishes unfolding in such unpredictable and personal fashion almost an hour later (via the surging "Serenade"), Black Halo has staked a claim for best ever Kamelot album -- and therefore a highly recommended album by any standards. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia

The Blood Brothers, thankfully, cannot be categorized. Too angular and arty for conventional headbangers, and too thrash-oriented for shoegazing indie kids, the ruckus the band creates simultaneously flays the nerves and engages the brain. CRIMES, the Brothers' fourth album, develops the sound pioneered on their previous releases, particularly the dual screaming-vocal duties of Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney. The relentless banshee screeches of both singers are hair-raising, and this, combined with the jagged, punk- and metal-influenced arrangements, proves to be the music's most distinguishing feature.

But the Blood Brothers are deeper and more complex than your average thrash outfit. Avant-garde atmospheric passages, unexpected moments of melodicism, and associative lyrics that read like a surrealist's word game add unique dimensions to CRIMES, as does the creative instrumentation (how many hardcore bands feature laptop, Farfisa, Wurlitzer, and trumpet?). Whether trafficking in the moody experimentation of post-punk and New Wave ("Love Rhymes with Hideous Car Wreck") or the ferocious intensity of speed metal ("Trash Flavored Trash"), CRIMES is full of frantic, pummeling, inventive energy, and presents the Blood Brothers as one of the more distinctive rock bands on the scene.

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