Best Black Metal Guitar Solo

For many years I listen to Black Metal Genre, I rarely found a guitar solo. Maybe some of you would say that there is a guitar solo in some of Dimmu Borgir, Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone recordings, but I think that is not that good. Now I will talk about the best guitar solo in Black Metal.

If you know about the band called Drudkh, the most known Black Metal act in Ukraine, they have a great guitar solo in their song "Furrows of God", it is not really that clear, but you can hear some shreddy guitar solo. And in Emperor's "The Loss and Curse of Reverence", there is a guitar solo but you can barely listen to that, you can clearly see the solo live, it is very clear that Ihsahn is a great guitarist. In the Arcturus's "To Thou Who Dwellest In the Night", there is a very very brilliant guitar solo by Carl August Tidemann. Actually I don't know this man, and when I heard this guitar solo, I know that this man is a very great shredder. He put on some fast sweep-picking techniques in this solo, and his playing is very clean Oh My God. But... There is a better solo than the previous one, this is called "Ancestor of Magick" by Arthemesia. Some of you maybe don't know about this great Black Metal band, but there is Jari Maenpaa who fills the guitar. He is one of the very best guitarists in Finland, and for me one of the best guitarists in the world. The guitar solo in this song is fast and clean, it is like the previous one, Jari also use the clean, fast sweep-picking techniques.

For me, "Ancestor of Magick" is the best Black Metal guitar solo ever, the second is "To Thou Who Dwellest In The Night", the third is "Furrows of God", and fourth is "Loss and Curse of Reverence". But if you know a Black Metal guitar solo that is better than "Ancestor of Magick", let me know, I wonder how great it is.

Thanks for reading, sorry for my bad grammar, Terima Kasih!!

Djiwo - Cakra Bhirawa

Hello World, I would like to introduce to you, the Indonesian Black/Doom hordes Djiwo. Actually I don't really into the Doom Metal scene but I really love Black Metal so I will talk about this band, especially their first album "Cakra Bhirawa". Djiwo, formed in 2013 and consists of two members, Djiwo Ratriarkha and Fancy Burn, I got this information from Encyclopaedia Metallum. They released their first album "Cakra Bhirawa" in August 2014.

When I heard the words "Black Doom", I always thought about Barathrum and yes I think that some of the riffs in this album similar to Barathrum but with a slower tempos. And the double bass drumming makes me think of Loits, Black Metal act from Estonia, although Loits is not a Black Doom band. What I like about "Cakra Bhirawa" is there is a bluesy guitar solo but somehow it also contains a little bit of Javanese influence. And the vocals, the high-pitch shrieking vocals, reminds me of Alghazanth, a Symphonic Black Metal band from Finland.

For me, "Cakra Bhirawa" is a mix between Loits, Barathrum, and Alghazanth. The minus point of this album is I really don't know the lyrics, and I don't know what what He is saying in this album. I don't know if their lyrics are English or Bahasa Indonesia, or maybe I'm just stupid. Maybe I would rate it 79 out of 100.

Thanks for reading, sorry for my bad grammar, Terima Kasih!!

Barque of Dante Alchemist

Some of you may knew this Power Metal band from China. They are really good as a Power Metal band. I already listened to their first two albums, and they sound like a European Power Metal band, especially in the second album where Thomas Winkler from Gloryhammer fills the vocal section. But, in the third album, Alchemist, it really surprised me because of the additional elements of Progressive Metal. And then I find out that Aquiles Priester (ex-Angra, Hangar) played the drum in this album. This album is great, the instrumentation, vocals by Rob Lundgren, it is all great. But....

Some of the songs in this album will remind you of Angra's "Temple of Shadows". I think it is the "Temple of Shadows" without Brazilian folk elements. One of the example is the song "Spread Your Wings" that is close enough with Angra's "Spread Your Fire". Not only the title that similar, I think the song is similar too, the drumming at the intro and at the chorus that is very Angra-ish, and the guitar solo too. The third song, "Ocean of Dreams" somehow reminds me of "The Shadow Hunter", and the guitar solo at the title track "The Alchemist" also reminds me of Angra.

I know some of you may think that "Alchemist" and "Temple of Shadows" are different in many ways, yes it is, but for me the two are really comparable, because they have the same drummer, and similar guitar playing style, and they both great. I really like the vocals of Rob Lundgren in this album, so I think that "Alchemist" is slightly better. I think it is 95 out of 100.

Thanks for reading, sorry for my bad grammar, Terima Kasih!!

Don't You Forget : Dreamtale - Beyond Reality

 I will never stop listen to this great album, and will always say that this is Dreamtale's best album. All of you who don't know Dreamtale, it is a Power Metal Band from Finland, it doesn't have a big name like Sonata Arctica or Stratovarius, but trust me, it also has very good musicality as the two big name I mentioned. This album begins with a very beautiful piano, and this is of course an introduction to the second song "Memories of Time. It is a true Power Metal song, straightforward, fast. The next song "Fallen Star", also a fast song, features female vocal by Sanna Natunen. The fouth track, an 8-minutes-long song, it is features Marco Hietala on vocal. Again, it is a fast song, but now with a little progressive element, a change of tempo. The next song "Where the Rainbow Ends", is not a fast song, just like Helloween's "Future World", or Strato's "Hunting High and Low", but one interesting thing here is the verse, really reminds me of the chorus of "Future World", if you listen to this, you know what I mean. Next is "Time of Fatherhood", a slow song, almost like a ballad, and the chorus, it won't let go off my mind. And we are back to a fast song called "Dreamland", which also features female vocal. I won't tell you the other songs, because they all almost similar. But, my most favorite song of this album is "Refuge from Reality", although it is on the low side of the list, you can't skip it.

It is a very great album, almost of the song has fast tempos, and catchy chorus, I would give this 100, but since it has time-wasting elements such as 8-minutes song and unimportant tempo change, I will give this a 95 out of 100

Thanks for reading, sorry for my bad grammar, Kiitos Paljon!!

After All - Dawn of the Enforcer, it is actually good

 You know that Thrash Metal isn't about Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax, or Kreator, Sodom, or Destructor. You should check the band named After All, it is from Belgium, formed in 1987 and, the album that I listened to, is titled "Dawn of the Enforcer". The opener is "Parasite Within", that has the usually great Thrash Metal riff, but the one thing that surprised me (in a negative way) is the vocal. For me, the vocal is not for the Thrash Metal, and if someone has a vocal character like this band's vocalist Sammy Peleman, he should be a vocalist for a Power Metal band, not a Thrash Metal band. In the third song, I found something that somehow similar to Lamb of God's "Laid to Rest" in the beginning of the song. The song "Spread the Infamy", a little bit reminds me of Anthrax, because of the guitar riffs, and the vocals that I now realized that it is similar to Joey Belladona's, and the seventh "Demolition Course", the guitar riffs reminds me of Kreator.

I can't talk more about any other song of this album, because it is almost similar to the others. You will get a Joey Belladona-esque vocals, a mix of Anthrax and Kreator riffs, a similar to Kreator drumming sometimes they also do blast-beats, and it is good. I can say that it is a hybrid between Anthrax and Kreator. I would rate this album an 80 out of 100.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for my bad grammar!!

Age of Artemis, or Angra? Overcoming Limits 2012

A new Power Metal band, with strong influence from the fellow Brazilian, Angra, Age of Artemis launch their debut album in 2012 titled "Overcoming Limits"

This album, from the instruments playing until the mixing of the audio, it is really similar to Angra. But it is not Angra, because they have their own style, especially the vocalist that make this band a little bit different from Angra. This album begins with intro called "What Lies Behind", and continues with my absolutely favorite song of this album which called "Echoes Within". The fast double-bass drumming, the catchy chorus, and the vocals are really great, and the guitar solos by Gabriel Soto and Nathan Grego really blow my mind, they are really good. Next song is called "Mystery", not as fast as the previous one, but it also has the catchy chorus. The song that has similarity with this is called "Break Up the Chain", it is the sixth song of this album. The 4th song is also very special to me, it is called "Take Me Home", a ballad that has a progressive element in it, and that's very good. The ninth track of this album has more neo-classical atmosphere in my opinion, because of the Phrygian Major modes that they played and it is called "God, Kings and Fools". And the last song is "Till the End" that is similar to "Echoes Within" but not as good as that.

For me, it is like Angra with a different vocalist that have different style of vocal. The greatest of this album, for me, still "Echoes Within", when you listen, you know why that is my favorite. And because of the "Echoes Within", I would give this album a 90 out of 100.

Sorry for my bad grammar, thanks for reading my review!

Paara, Deserves More Attentions

 This page only shows my experience when I listen to this great 6-piece Black Metal band from Finland. I listened only one of their album which is titled "Riitti". This album begins with a track called "Viimeinen Virta" which means ''The Last Stream'', it began with very slow drumming and very melancholy guitar playing, almost similar to what Doom Metal bands did, and with a grieving clean singing by the vocalist, that happens for like 9 minutes in this 15 minutes dong. The brutality came in the 9:00 mark, with unique shrieking vocals and not-too-fast blast-beats drumming, until almost in the end of the song, it backs to the beginning of the song. The next song in this album called "Hurmeen Hauta", it is a truly headbang-able song, with a minor-to-minor guitar chord progression, and the strange thing in this song is, somehow they played blast-beats drumming with a major guitar riffs. The next song is "Suon Sydan", that brings either calmness or sad impression, with almost neo-classical harmonic minor chord progression in the beginning, and then continues with a shrieking vocals, and again, the unique thing in this song is they played a hardcore punk drumming, the rest is what you have heard in the previous song. I don't want to write about anything in the last song, because it is really similar to what I listened previously.

Riitti is a very good and unique Black Metal album, that brought me to quietude but only in the beginning, and then really punch me in the face when it started its brutality with the blast-beats and shrieking vocals. One thing that I don't like in this album is, they combined a blast-beats drumming with the clean vocals. If I could rate this album, I would give it 80 out of 100.

Sorry for my bad grammar, and thanks for READING my review, Kiitos Paljon!