Progressive Power Metal outfit Chaos Over Cosmos recently released their debut album “The Unknown Voyage” September 7th. The Polish and Spanish duo has installed classic prog metal influences in their sound and mixed that with lots of dual guitar leads and synthesizer tracks. It’s an impressive debut that could make any classic prog metal fan happy. Check out the album on their band camp website right below.
Javier Calderon – Vocals
Rafal Bowman – Guitars, Synth, Programming
While its not over the top technical, the impressive track layering keeps you zoned in on their epics. Rafal and Javier worked together to create well layered tracks and great keyboard melodies that compliment his voice.
The Unknown Voyage:
A Hidden Path (2:52)
Armour Of The Stars (Xenogears) (14:49)
They Will Fall (11:59)
The Compass (10:50)
The Sky Remembered My Name (Instrumental) (7:12)
Clocking in slightly under 50 minutes, “The Unknown Voyage” is a diamond in the rough for progressive metal that has recently been taken over with lots of gutturals. Javier’s voice is a nice change up from a genre that has been fairly extreme, in recent years. I expect good things out of the guys and am glad I stumbled across this album. Rafal’s musicianship is very elaborate and their debut album really showcases his ear for the band’s melodies. I love how he went all out on some parts, and then scaled it back when he had a great melody on his guitar leads. Rafal is a well versed guitarist who kept my interest throughout the band’s debut album.
If you’re a classic progger or an old man who just hates gutturals, blast beats and extended rage guitars this band is for you! If you’re not into the whacky and extra heavy part of progressive metal, but a band with a classic sound that reminds you of Symphony X and Wintersun you’ll dig Chaos Over Cosmos.
Brazilian Death Metal band Monstrath is premiering their video for “Demon Sold” off of their upcoming debut album “The World Serves To Evil”. The technicality and heaviness of Monstrath really shines through on this song! Have fun and bang your fucking head! Don’t worry TMR has ya covered folks!
Death metal band Micawber is on a September headliner tour with support from Ahtme and Lago. All bands are promoting new releases and I highly suggest you check out these extreme metal gems! Their bassist Marv answered the questions. The guys are stopping in Tonawanda this coming Monday the 24th, don’t stay home with a case of the Monday blues and check out some great tech/groove death metal bands ya duds!
TMR: How has Beyond The Reach Of Flame been taken by the metal community?
Seems like everyone really likes it which is great. Its pretty different from our last releases due to the addition of our new guitarist Derek Debruin, but we all dug the what we were coming up with which is always most important to us. We write what we like and if other people happen to dig it too thats awesome, which they have. TMR: Can you go into detail about the history of Micawber a bit and how it formed? I only found out about you guys a few months ago, and been a pretty big fan ever since.
Well Leighton and Tyler have been in the band since about 2007, with various style and lineup changes since. I joined about 8 years ago cuz the guys were going on tour a bunch, which is what I always wanted to do. Since then we’ve lost and gained a few members. Derek being the last guy joining about 3 years ago. We’ve been doing really well with this lineup and think we’ve finally got it solidified. TMR: What is the main theme behind your latest release?
You know the typical metal shit, politics, religion, partying, etc. Haha TMR: What are your favorite lyrics from Beyond The Reach Of Flame?
Mine personally are Full Denim Jacket which is a play on the title of the film Full Metal Jacket. But basically it’s about partying and rippin it up on the road. TMR: Favorite show you guys have played?
When we played The Whiskey in L.A. opening up on the Sepultura tour, that was pretty surreal. TMR: Who is your favorite band right now?
I really dig the new Black Fast album. We’d love to hit the road with those guys soon! TMR: Who influenced you to become musicians?
Metallica.
TMR: Recall some of your favorite moments in Micwaber.
All of them haha
TMR: What were/are some of your band’s biggest or most pivotal moment(s)?
Probably getting signed by Prosthetic Records and opening up for Sepultura. TMR: It’s your last day on this earth. What is your Last Supper consisting of?
The original $5 box at Taco Bell. TMR: What are your favorite metal genres?
Any of them that are loud, fast, and your parents (usually) don’t like. TMR: Rattle off bands you guys think are up and coming in the metal scene.
Our buddies in the Wisconsin band Toxic Ruin are rippin it up. Our buddies in Gorgatron are doing cool shit too, they’re some road dogs for sure. Also, our fill-in guitarist, Billy Zahn’s band Frosthelm is about to drop a new album, so be on the look for that and check all those bands out! TMR: Marry Fuck Kill, choose one option for each! Peter Griffin (from Family Guy), Homer Simpson, and Wonder Woman? And…Go! Have some fun with this one!
Garfield. TMR:What are you guys interested in outside of the band?
Progressive Death Metal Frenchmen Prophethic Scourge are releasing a heavy, heavy album on September 28th through Season of Mist and Klonosphere. It’s full of groove, emotion, and plenty of brutality. The band released its debut EP “Corrupt Karmik Invigilators” and Calvary definitely brings this young band to a new level. In their short existence they have already opened for notable extreme metal acts such as Six Feet under and Benighted! The band experimented a bit more (and I thoroughly enjoy it!) in comparison to their straightforward and heavy EP by adding more progressive, thrash and black metal elements to their songs.
I absolutely love the voice of Josh Smith and their drummer John Erviti. It’s great to have vocalists in death metal you can actually understand! I know, it’s rare but it DOES happen. John’s drumming is also a great highlight for me as in my world he’s almost like a human drum machine. The guitar work is very groovy, occasionally technical and very driving. I can’t say how much I really enjoyed “Calvary”, gonna have to say this beast is gonna be an under-looked record of this year. Enjoy a larger prog metal influenced track “A Medium- The Spider Goddess Revealed” below!
Ahtme is currently on the September Scum Tour with Micawber and Lago and had a chance to interview the guys in the beginning of their run. The band is celebrating the release of one of this year’s best albums in “Sewerborn” on their current tour. Their vocalist Brent and guitarist Dalton answered the questions in rotating order. Check it!
And in less than a week, this tour IS hitting up Tonanwanda at Stamps….Western New Yorkers don’t be stupid and hit up this killer tech/groove death metal show. The amount of talent on this bill is mind-blowing!
TMR: How has the reception of Sewerborn been? It’s been months since it’s inception. It’s more refined and mature than your debut which still crushes, you guys took it to another level with Sewerborn. Definitely a top five release of the year no doubt.
So farewerborn has been received well! Technically it’s a sophomore release but so much time has passed between it and the initial release of “The Demonization” that we personally kinda think of it as a debut. we definitely grew a lot in the years between the two records and at this point it feels like two totally different projects. Obviously our sound as a band stayed with us but we kinda “grew out” (for lack of a better term) of some things which pointed us in a somewhat different direction. We’re happy with how it came together and our fans response has been positive from what we can see.
TMR: What influenced the name change from The Roman Holiday?
We knew we wanted to change the name after our hiatus, so we started brainstorming a bunch of stuff. Nothing was really sticking… We had a song we had written as The Roman holiday (Lord of Shit) which was originally called “Ahtme, Lord of shit”. We dug the idea behind the song a lot and decided to steal the Deity from it and use it as our Moniker.
TMR: Can you guys explain the artwork for Sewerborn? It’s so ugly and hideous I love it! What is it’s meaning and representation?
The concept for the album is kind of just a general statement on how people are for the most part disgusting. The lyrics for the title track “Subhuman Remains” kinda speak to that idea specifically but most of our songs have lyrics in a similar vein. The face on the cover is actually made up from pieces of all of our faces. We sent the artist pictures of us and he basically made a collage from pieces of each of our faces and then made it look like it spent its life in a Sewer. It sounds like is all serious subject matter but it’s really just an idea that’s fun to explore and write about, none of us really feel like we have a “statement” to make, we just enjoy gross and absurd stuff.
TMR: How did Ahtme come together? And what does your band name mean?
After The Roman holiday went on hiatus we all still kicked it all the time, its always been a tight knit group. Nothing really changed from TRH to Ahtme, besides the name. Ahtme is the Lord of Shit. He is the God you pray to after a long night of drinking, doubled over on the toilet cursing christ, begging for the hershey squirts to stop.
TMR: Who’s everyone’s favorite up & coming band? Namedrop all your faves!
We’re all super excited for Warforged to put our the record they’ve been working on. There are a ton of bands from here in KC that we are stoked on too Destructionist, Sedlec Ossuary, Marasmus and Gravelord are some of our close buddies that are super sick.
TMR: What are your favorite releases of the year so far?
Too many to name… but off the top Slugdge, Gravelord, Alkaloid, Obscura, Soreption, Hideous Divinity, Morbid Angel.
TMR: What influenced you guys to get into extreme metal?
We all came up in the early 2000’s listening to a lot of deathcore back when that was popular and that got us playing “heavy” stuff But as you learn your instrument and become more focused on being a musician I think you just naturally gravitate towards more technical and challenging stuff which is how we got into death metal.
TMR: How did you guys become musicians?
Most of us started playing around the 8th grade. We (Dalton, Brent) used to flip through Musician’s Friend magazines during class and day dream about all the stuff we wanted to buy. Eventually we saved enough money to buy some beginner stuff and started a shit punk rock band… the rest is history.
TMR: Can you go into further detail for the Subhuman Remains video? It’s such a wildly entertaining video. Who came up with the idea?
Haha well The chorus of the title track is “Sewer-born” and we just decided to roll with that and give birth to a baby in a sewer haha. That’s about as far as the idea went, we just got ridiculous props together and spent the day in a snow storm shooting that video covered in fake blood in freezing sewer water. It was actually on Easter Sunday when we shot it and I (Dalton) got so insanely sick after that day I had a fever for like a week almost. As long as it’s up to us all of our videos will be stupid and wild like that. I for one would always rather look like an idiot than try to look cool.
TMR: What do you guys plan on doing after your upcoming tour with Micawber and Lago?
Comin’ home and sleeping in our own beds lol. As far as Ahtme is concerned we plan to start chipping away at the new record. We’re sitting on a fat stack of new shit right now. We’re super stoked to get the ball rolling on that!
TMR: Opinions on your tour mates recent releases?
Yeah, Both Lago and Micawber put out badass albums this year! We were pumped when we got to book this tour with them, it’s gonna be sick to play with them every night and watch them rip. It seems like they’ve both been well received too, we hope maybe we can all make a few new fans off each other playing together every night.
TMR: Any advice for new bands?
PRACTICE!Have fun, and don’t take yourself too seriously!
TMR: What bands would you love to play with?
That would be a loooong list haha but off hand I’d say: Vader, The Zenith Passage, Decapitated, Martyr (R.I.P.) Narcotic Wasteland, Nile. I could go on forever, basically every band that I’d like to see live.
TMR: What interests does everyone have outside of music?
BBQ (KC DOES IT BEST!), video games, camping, floating, being out on the lake, dog party’s… pretty much anything that involves us getting together with our friends and having a good time… booze are cool too.
TMR: You can only take one piece of gear with you after your place burns down! What do you save? A certain amp, mic or guitar of sorts?
For me (Dalton) definitely my guitar. Amps and pedals and stuff are a dime a dozen but I think your instrument you really wanna be super familiar with all the time. I play a Ran crusher 7 string and an Ibanez RG but the Ran is definitely my baby.
TMR: What new releases are you looking forward to?
To name a handful… Warforged, Gorod, Psycroptic, Devin Townsend, Revocation.
TMR: How does Ahtme write? At practice or on your own?
I write the riffs on my own, usually with simple programmed drums to help convey the original idea to the other members. I try to make a general outline of a song alone. We sit down as a band and hash everything out after that and that’s when the songs really come together. Sometimes I’ll write an entire song and we all just learn it as it is, but it’s usually got at least a little piece of everyone in it somewhere.
TMR: What is your favorite show you have ever played?
That’s a tough one… don’t know if we can narrow it down to a favorite one, but the last Devastation on the Nation line up was super sick; Psycroptic, Ingested, Disentomb, Arkaik, Venom Prison, Vale of Pnath, Torn The Fuck Apart, and us. Every band killed shit that night! We played a show with Gorguts and Exist, that one was sick too!
TMR: Give me your craziest and oddest tour stories.
We don’t get to hit the road much seeing as we all have full time jobs and lives and all that boring stuff but when we were really young back when we were the Roman holiday we definitely made some bad decisions hahaha. Some girl let us party at her parents house all night while they were gone out of town and our buddy rode a wheel chair off the roof into an above ground pool and totally fuckin smashed the pools pump and broke the side of it and we went ahead and took off lol. If that chick happens to see this… we’re sorry!
One cool band I found this year is Lago, a death metal band out of Arizona. Heavy as fuck and groovy. Their guitarist and vocalist Cole answered the questions. Many topics were discussed, including their tour they just started with Micwaber and Ahtme…..Dates are right below. Oh, and if you live in Western New York this tour package is a definite must see for a Monday Funday show! A great Death/Groove/Tech metal tour with local support from Death Metal band Debrained. COME THE FUCK ON OUT AND BEAT THE MONDAY BLUES! And show some love for Mike Deitzman who’s putting on this show and has a history with the buffalo music scene….the guy deserves your respect. Promoting and booking ain’t easy, folks.
09/14 Austin, TX @ Come and Take it Live
09/15 Fort Worth, TX @ Tomcats West
09/16 Houston, TX @ Acadia Bar
09/17 New Orleans, LA @ Santos Bar
09/19 Greenville, SC @ The Radio Room
09/21 Frederick, MD @ Cafe 611
09/22 Trenton, NJ @ Championship Bar
09/23 Brooklyn, NY @ The Kingsland 09/24 Tonawanda, NY @ Stamps
09/25 Pittsburgh, PA @ The Smiling Moose
09/26 Lexington, KY @ The Green Lantern
09/27 Chicago, IL @ GMan Tavern
09/28 Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room
09/29 Denver, CO @ Trailside Saloon
TMR: How was Lago brought together? And what’s the meaning and influence on the band name?
I started it just for the sake of jamming back in 2009 when I was still in the Marines. The band name comes from the movie “High Plains Drifter”. The town in the movie is called Lago
TMR: Sea Of Duress is a killer album! Do you feel as a band you have artistically evolved from your previous releases?
Yes. That’s really the point. I can see how more known bands can possibly alienate fans by doing this. We just don’t want to put out the same album every time.
TMR: What advice you would give the younger version of yourselves you have learned along the way? Wether it’s music related or business/industry related.
I think I would just say for starters… play music that you want to. Have the art you present only be something you approve. Stay genuine. Metal doesn’t pay the bills so make sure it’s truly something that you love.
TMR: What do you guys like to drink? Beer, liquor? What’s your poison?
We’re beer guys. Our drummer and lead guitarist love the herb… but we def love beer. Type of beer? Any.
TMR: Describe the Lago creative process. Is it collaborative? Do you build off a theme, or the music? Let us step inside your creative brains!
We kinda get 2 or three base riffs and build off of them. As far as lyrics we generally tend to have a theme. We came up in the punk world as kids so we have those types of ethics and values that kind of show up in lyrics.
TMR: What’s everyone’s favorite death metal band and death metal album of all time?
Irreversible Mechanism’s sophomore album was released yesterday, and has raised all kinds of eyebrows for fans of the technical/progressive death metal newcomers now turned more melodic and more atmospheric. For fans like myself who have been there for a few years since the 2015 mind-blowing tech death debut opus “Infinite Fields” it might be a letdown for those fans. Since they released the single “Abolution” I heard twice before the release and the stream this past Wednesday I heard once, It’s started to grow. Lots of artists release work that doesn’t really grab you from the first listen, and its always best to give albums a few chances or revisit them a few years later.
Another potential factor that may have influenced their sound was Yaroslov Korotkin left the band during the recording (or after maybe?) of “Immersion”. Don’t want to speculate if it was on good terms or not, but Ilya Studenok took over the spot in the band. Maybe he helped sway the band’s sound and try something different? Immersion is a good release that will get better every listen through, as of right now this is my 4th time through the album since yesterday.
The guitar work of Vladislav is top notch, as usual. It’s more melodic and focused this time around, and as previously stated less tech and frantic. Don’t worry IM fans, their music is still heavily layered with different key & synth sounds, and some guitar duals. There are even parts of singing that make their songs from “Immersion” more dynamic and emotional. Unfortunately (in my case at least) there isn’t any string work on the songs that I absolutely loved periodically on their debut. I love when tech and prog bands add orchestrated elements to their music, whether its a slight influence or heavier influence. There’s also some electronic surprises in the songs which wasn’t present in “Infinite Fields”.
Overall I enjoy Immersion the more I listen to it, and people should just shut the fuck up and listen. It’s a solid album on a new label (Blood Music) that is better than your average modern metal band’s release. Personally I think the guys wanted to try something new, and not everyone is accepting right off the bat, at least. Here are both albums, so you can hear the sound difference and make your own choice. Both albums are solid, either way.
