Initial Impressions: Laethora: The Light in Which We All Burn

Laethora was a band I first heard about a couple of years ago. The side project of Dark Tranquillity guitarist Niklas Sundin in order to explore a side of death metal that DT does not play. Thus, the music on Laethora’s debut album was dark and heavy, with elements of doom and grind. Laethora proved to not be a one-off project as the band released its sophomore album last week. This one to a much wider release apparently as I managed to find it at Hastings here in Norfolk.

I enjoyed their debut album quite a bit, so I decided to pick this one up too, especially since it was getting some pretty positive reviews in Metalsucks and Decibel. Laethora definitely picks up where they left off on the last album. I have no idea where Sundin found vocalist Jonatan Nordenstam, as he is not with any other band, but man does he ever do a good job. He has very deep, guttural death growls that sound decayed and corroded, the way John Tardy of Obituary sounded early on.

Musically, Laethora continues to play a toxic mixture of various metal styles. They are based in death metal, but it is still not the Gothenburg melodic death metal style of Sundin’s other band. It is much heavier and more chaotic. They have improved their songwriting skills on this album as well, sounding more like a complete album than a collection of ideas.

Laethora has improved leaps and bounds on this album. And they were pretty good on their debut. This is a great album. It's hard to believe this is just a side project.

My Favorite Metal Side Projects

I don't really need to explain what a side project is. If I do, then you will get a sense of what it is from reading this post. These are my favorite side projects in no particular order. If your favorite is not here, I probably either don't like them or haven't heard them.

DOWN
Down formed as a side project of members of Pantera (Phil Anselmo, and later Rex Brown), Corrosion of Conformity (Pepper Keenan), Crowbar (Kirk Windstein, Todd Strange), and Eyehategod (Jimmy Bower). The band played a style of metal incorporating Southern rock elements and doom metal. It sounded aggressive and dirty and sounded like it came from the swamps of Louisiana, which is of course where the band is from. The first album blew everyone away. While the second and third albums are not as good as the first one, the band has still become a major force in metal. Especially since Pantera is no longer around and the other bands are are on hiatus or just have not released anything in awhile. This is my personal favorite side project.
NAILBOMB
Nailbomb was a side project for Max Cavalera of Sepultura and Alex Newport of the horrendously named Fudge Tunnel. The band formed as an outlet for the members to experiment with industrial thrash metal similar to Ministry. The band is extremely loud and powerful with Max's brutal vocals to carry things along. The politics of Sepultura's groove metal period have also been brought to the mix. This was essentially a one-off project to allow the members to play a different style of metal. It's not bad but not one of the better side projects out there. They certainly know how to raise an unholy racket though.
BLOODBATH
The Swedish death metal supergroup is a collection of several musicians from the country's metal scene that have decided to pay tribute to old school Swedish death. The band was originally formed with members of Opeth (Mikael Akerfeldt), Edge of Sanity (Dan Swano), and Katatonia (Jonas Renske, Blakkheim Nystrom). Later, Akerfeldt left and Martin Axenrot (Witchery, Opeth) and Peter Tagtren (Hypocrisy) joined. Still later, Akerfeldt returned to replace Tagtren and Per Eriksson also joined after Swano left. The band plays fast, heavy death metal with a strong reverence toward groups like Nihilist, Carnage, Dismember, Grave, and others. The guitar sound features the familiar buzzsaw tone. The band has released three albums, a couple of EPs, and a live album and are quickly becoming a force unto themselves.
DRAGONLORD
This one's a little different. Dragonlord is the symphonic black metal side project of several members of bands who have little to nothing to do with black metal. The principal members are Eric Peterson of Testament and Steve Smyth of Nevermore. The band plays black metal similar to Dimmu Borgir and other symphonic black metal bands. They were formed so that Peterson could explore darker music than the thrash metal of Testament. It was a little weird looking through band photos and seeing these guys in corpse paint. Oh well, they're very good at what they do, even though symphonic black metal is not one of my favorite genres. My good friend got me their second CD when I graduated from law school. I enjoy it quite a bit.
I
This is one of my favorite side projects. I is a combination of musicians from Norwegian black metal bands coming together and playing traditional-sounding heavy metal but with blackened vocals. The band consists of Abbath and Armagedda of Immortal, TC King of Gorgoroth, and Ice Dale of Enslaved. Demonaz of Immortal wrote many of the songs and lyrics while recovering from Carpal Tunnel (damn insanely fast Immortal riffs). The songs are incredibly memorable and the riffs are great. This is one of the most interesting side projects in years.
LAETHORA
Laethora is a side project of Niklas Sundin of Dark Tranquillity. The band was formed as a way for Sundin to explore more extreme forms of metal than the melodic death metal that Dark Tranquillity releases. Laethora has influences from brutal death, grindcore, old school death metal, and doom metal. The band will soon release their second full-length album.
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY
This is Max Cavalera's return to metallic form. Taking a break from nu-metal band Soulfly, Cavalera joins with his brother Iggor who recently left Sepultura, Soulfly guitarist and flamenco-specialist Marc Rizzo, and Gojira bassist Joe DuPlantier. Cavalera Conspiracy's sound is a mix of groove metal and thrash metal with some hardcore influences thrown in as well. The band was a reunion for the Cavalera brothers who have not played in the same band together since Max left Sepultura in the late 1990's.
HAIL OF BULLETS
An amazing collection of death metal talent came together in this album, a concept album centered around the German invasion of Russia in WWII. The musicians from Thanatos joined forces with Pestilence/Asphyx lead singer Martin Van Drunen, one of the most distinctive voices in extreme metal. He brings his trademarked raspy, hissing growls to Thanatos's infectious riffwork. A great album. Soon after, Van Drunen announced a reformation of Asphyx. Excellent.
RAZOR OF OCCAM
I had to end on an Australian war metal band. Razor of Occam is a combination of musicians from Destroyer 666, Adorior, and Macabre Omen. As implied, they play blackened thrash metal. It's fast, aggressive, and razor sharp. They lyrics are a bit more on the intelligent side than those of D666's. Not a problem though as the music is just as incendiary as ever.

Weekly Recap: Feb. 14-Feb. 20

Oh man, what a week it has been. It's been another somewhat slow week for work. I did have a deposition on Tuesday. Other than that, it's just been a few research projects and crap like that.

Valentine's Day was nearly a total disaster. We had a little bit of snow and a whole lot of wind, which coupled with the snow made driving conditions extremely hazardous. My fiancee and I had plans to go to Omaha for the Lipizzaner horse show at 2:00 in the afternoon. We left around 10:30 to get there, we planned to get lunch and go to the show then come home early that night. Well driving through the hills proved a little treacherous and we did see a vehicle that had gotten stuck in a snowdrift. We made it to a small town about 20 miles east of home when we were stopped by an emergency vehicle roadblock. Apparently there was a seven car pile up a little ways farther east and we were told to park in the small town nearby and wait it out. Unacceptable to my fiancee. She was upset, so we took our chances, went back to our town and went south to try to get there. We made it about halfway when we were again stopped by an emergency roadblock. We again tried to get there by taking county roads and made it to North Bend where the highway was closed on both sides. We were stuck and my fiancee was devastated. It was already 2:00. I called the Qwest Center to try to get a refund knowing the chances were slim. They told me they could exchange the tickets for the later show that night. Eureeka. We managed to make it to Omaha by 4:30 after they opened the highway back up. We grabbed a quick bite at Subway, shopped for a little bit at Homer's Music Store and then went to the show. My fiancee loved it and her Valentine's Day present. The road back home was also a little iffy but we made it in one piece.

The CD player in my car stopped working Sunday which meant we had to listen to the radio most of the day. We found a 1980's hard rock station and listened to groups like Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Billy Idol, and others most of the way home. Not bad, but not preferable.

I bought concert tickets for Lincoln in April to see Overkill, Vader, God Dethroned, Warbringer, Evile, and Woe of Tyrants. I'm excited to see those bands. Vader has been in Nebraska twice in recent years, once while backing up Nile and once on the Summer Slaughter tour and I missed them both times. I was pissed both times, but now I can see them. God Dethroned released one of my favorite albums of 2009. Overkill released a great disc this year and Warbringer and Evile are two great young thrash metal bands. Woe of Tyrants is the only band I am not familiar with.

I bought two albums this week from Enslaved, and albums by Arsis, Anvil, and Carnifex. My fiancee gave me the new Orphaned Land CD for Valentine's Day. It's a great album.

In metal this week:
Vocalist James Lee left Origin. That's a shame. Origin is one of the better technical death metal bands around these days. Lee had a distinctive deep death growl. Apparently the singer for The Faceless will be joining the band. I have no opinions on him at all.

This happened awhile ago actually but Harry Conklin has rejoined Satan's Host. He was in the band in the 1980's when they were a dark power metal band. Since Conklin left and focused on Jag Panzer, Satan's Host became a thrashy melodic black metal band. I am not sure what this means for Satan's Host. Will they become a dark power metal band again? Will they reissue their debut album? What will happen to former singer Eli? I actually liked Satan's Host's black metal stuff. I will keep an eye on this.

Mike Portnoy, drummer for Dream Theater, will be recording with Avenged Sevenfold. Blech.

2/14-2/20
Amon Amarth: Versus the World Bonus Disc
Angra: Temple of Shadows
Anvil: Forged in Fire
Arsis: Starve for the Devil
Black Sabbath: Heaven and Hell
Carnifex: Hell Chose Me
Charred Walls of the Damned: Charred Walls of the Damned
Cradle of Filth: Nymphetamine
Dark Moor: Beyond the Sea
Death: Symbolic
Dew-Scented: Incinerate
Dream Evil: The Book of Heavy Metal
Einherjer: Blot
Enslaved: Ruun
Enslaved: Vertebrae
Faith No More: The Real Thing
Force of Evil: Black Empire
Grave: Hating Life
Havok: Burn
I: Between Two Worlds
Immortal: All Shall Fall
Immortal: Battles in the North
Immortal: Pure Holocaust
Immortal: Sons of Northern Darkness
Impiety: Terroreign
Iron Fire: To the Grave
Iron Maiden: Powerslave
Judas Priest: Defenders of the Faith
Kamelot: Ghost Opera
Katatonia: Brave Yester Days
King Diamond: Abigail
Laethora: March of the ParasiteLandmine Marathon: Rusted Eyes Awake
Motorhead: The Very Best of Motorhead
Opeth: Blackwater Park
Orphaned Land: The Never-Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Overkill: Horrorscope
Overkill: Ironbound
Rumpelstiltskin Grinder: Living for Death, Destroying the Rest
Satyricon: Rebel Extravaganza
Sepultura: Arise
Sepultura: Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation
Symphorce: Become Death
Testament: The Ritual
The Haunted: Versus
Toxic Holocaust: An Overdose of Death...
Vader: Live in Japan
Warbringer: Waking Into Nightmares
Warbringer: War Without End