FOAT

In Mourning Weight of Oceans

Weight of Oceans is the first in a concept spanning 3 albums that I like to call the color albums: Weight of Oceans blue, Afterglow red, and Garden of Storms magenta. The opening track Colossus starts with a down-right addictive bass line and the song is in itself a colossus. A Vow to Conquer the Ocean has some riffs in that are just...juicy and Convergence is an amazing journey. The album takes a break from the heaviness with the track Celestial Tear, a much more mellow song with all clean vocals. This track at first might seem misplaced, but actually becomes a welcomed diversion along with Sirens, a pretty and piano-centric instrumental intro for Isle of Solace. From a Tidal Sleep is another one I really like and feel that it has more of the sound that can be heard on the next 2 albums. In Mourning is an interesting band that afaik, has always had 3 guitarists and you would think they would get in each other's way, but they never seem to. Even though I really like all 3 of the color albums, this one is imo the most progressive of the group. Their bandcamp can be found HERE. Check them out. (Not Monolith, which is like a band with too much talent for nu-metal/core trying to be nu-metal/core because it was the style at the time like an onion on the belt. We don't talk about that album in polite society. Ok, it's not actually that bad, but still.)

Karlahan Exile

Karlahan is a band that seems to come into and out of existence, sadly. Exile was released in 2015, and there was really no activity from them until 2024 when they started posting some songs on their Bandcamp. Some of these songs were written long ago and they decided to release them, 2 were released under a new album called Rebirth, which I got really excited for until that activity seemed to slow down as well. Nevertheless, Exile is an epic-folky-prog-melo-death masterpiece imo. It's a concept that bookends, meaning if you listen on repeat, the last song flows into the first and the cycle repeats. The story in this album took me a while to really figure out, but once I got it I was blown away by the emotional depth it has. I don't think I should tell you what my interpretation is, it is after all art, which is subjective and I think you should listen to it!

Rising orchestral and choir explosions are followed up by sweeping guitar melodies that really carry the songs on this album. They get fairly experimental within the genre by incorporating a fleeting funk guitar bit into Involution pt.2 but it somehow works really well, and Guillem Rejón Pérez's wonderful clean vocals are accentuated by guest vocalist Dan Swano's (Edge of Sanity, Nightingale) on the track Enhancement Through Change, one of my faves on the album. The album culmintates in the serenely beautiful and somber In a Sea of Mist. It's an album I can listen to over and over and never get bored. According to their bandcamp page linked above, the label with which they had a contract prevented distribution somehow, but details aren't given. Exile is currently a free digital download from the band. If you'd like something a little more blackend, I recommend their EP A Portrait of Life.

Katatonia the Great Cold Distance

This is the 7th studio lp by the swedish metal band Katatonia. I really like this one for it's overall slightly sad sound even though it includes plenty of drive and impulse. Though it opens plenty strong with Leaders, I feel like the album really gets going by track 3, Soil's Song, and My Twin has always been one of my faves on this album as well as July which sounds somewhat personal to singer/guitarist Jonas Renske and has some really tight riffs. The next song, In the White almost explodes in the choruses with a powerful blend of guitar and melodic vocals. The album closes with the slightly more stripped down but almost hypnotic Journey Through Pressure, verges on doom metal. The whole album is really melodic while still fairly aggressive. This album represents frantic but positive change for me. Their bandcamp seems to redirect to their own site HERE. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaunis Kuolematon Vapaus

Vapaus is the 2nd LP by Finnish blackened-death-doom band Kaunis Kuolematon, and was my introduction to this band, though I was familiar with Mikko Heikkilä from Sinamore, a goth rock project from which Kaunis shares 3 members. The lyrics are in finnish. I don't mind one bit, as the feel and gist of each song comes through perfectly without understanding a single word. (I take that last part back a little bit, I've learned a small handful of finnish words by listening to this band, which I think is pretty cool.)

Both Vapaus and it's predecessor, Kylmä kaunis maailma are full of emotional weight and unlike some doom metal, it never gets boring and goes so slowly that it's like 5bpm or something. I would call Vapaus pretty mid-tempo overall. Heikkilä's clean vocals are hauntingly beautiful and powerful, I swear his lungs must be shaped like cathedral ceilings. He also plays guitar. Olli Saakeli Suvanto does the black metal and death growl vocals and excells at both. There's a female guest vocalist on Eloton, whose voice is quite high but it stops short of gettting into Disney Princess territory, which I greatly appreciate, and the heaviness takes a short break on Hurskas for a classical guitar inspired interlude before returning to the main musical theme of the song. The music video for Tuhotta elama is powerful and sad, particularly in one scene in which you still aren't exactly sure what the main subject is up to when some girls begin filming him on cell phones. The album ends with the track Sanat jotka jäivät sanomatta where the music begins softly and then builds and builds into what feels like an explosion of deep-seated grief where maybe you wish you could release it like a bird from your soul and set it free before realizing that you can't and settling back into accepting it. I really find it hard to describe how much I love this album. Their bandcamp can be found HERE.

Opeth Ghost Reveries

Opeth needs no introduction. They've been around forever and have been hugely influential on melodic death metal. Though I own 6 or 7 of their albums, Ghost Reveries is absolute favorite. I was listening back to this album to try and put together thoughts on what I thought would be good for a synopsis of it, and I just...can't. There's just so many different things going on and every single song is a journey on it's own. I think it's my favorite due to the overall mood of the album being maybe a bit more sinister sounding than their other works even though they're still blending beauty and harshness perfectly. If you haven't heard it, pick any song from it to get a taste of what it's like. Stand-outs for me are Ghosts of Perdition, Reverie/Harlequin Forest and the Grand Conjuration, but it's all just indescribably perfect. I also really like Isolation Years even though it's very different from anything else on the album and a throw-back I feel to their previous album Damnation, which was a lot more mellow but beautifully done.

Paradise Lost--self-titled

This might be an unpopular pick among fans of this band, but I feel like it's really different in a good way. Paradise Lost is primarily known as a death-doom band, though they've crossed genres here and there, and this is their 100% goth-metal album with all clean vocals. It's a modern take on some of the '80s-style goth with that perfect blend of of catchy pop-like tunes, just darker and edgier. It's not pretentious, there's no stopping in the middle of a song to read a poem; It's goth with teeth. I've referred to the album as Paradise of Mercy before (If you get that, good ;p ). Every song is great, but if I had to pick one to be my fav on this one, it would be Sun Fading. They are another band that's been around forever and probably doesn't need a lot of description. If you want to hear some of their more death-doom material, I highly recommend Obsidian, another really good album from them, although I feel like they do give a nod back to their self-titled album here on it with the track Ghosts. Paradise Lost/Paradise Lost is just a really fun album to listen to.

Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream and it's b-side album, Pisces Iscariot

Yes, I know about all the drama with the band members that surrounded the recording of the albums, and I don't really care. I listened to these mostly at a time in my life when I could've used some escape and the sonic landscapes and melodies on that album do just that, and a bit inscrutable but pretty good lyrics as well: ...mother weep the years I'm missing, all our time can't be given---back, Mayonaise, a song I feel is about someone wanting only to be their true self but that is suppressed or discouraged.

Pisces Iscariot is a little more hit or miss, but it's got Landslide which no disrespect to Stevie Nicks, but I feel it's one of those rare covers that blows the original out of the water and became the definitive version of the song. Plus, there's the dream-like 11-min journey Starla with a long guitar solo that's a journey in itself. The bassline in Blue is part of what initially got me interested in bass guitar. I also quite appreciate Jimmy Chamberlain's drumming on these 2 albums, had they any other drummer these would just not carry the weight, excitement and vigor that they do.

At a time when grunge reigned supreme, Smashing Pumpkins both included themselves in the zeitgeist with heavy levels of distortion, catchy riffs and lyrical themes yet set themselves apart with psychadelic-inspired musicality.

Type O Negative Life is Killing Me

Type O was a band that carried me through my teen years and for me, this was their last great album. There's the usual brand of type-o-esque silliness on this album, but it also includes some really honest tracks. Peter Steele pushes his already deep vocals to new depths in the beginning of Nettie, a tribute song to his mother, and pushes them to screaming on Anesthesia, my favorite track on the album. It opens with the rocking I Don't Want to be Me which has a solid punk drum beat but still doesn't fail to work in some of the psychadellic goth sound that was so uniquely theirs. It closes with The Dream is Dead which kind of sounds like a goodbye from the band to me. In reality, it just marked a change.

I got to see them tour on this album, Prong opened. They were an hour late getting on stage, but it was worth the wait. Steele downed 2 bottles of red wine during the set and used the second once empty as a slide on his bass. Afterward, I got to meet and chat briefly with Josh, Kenny and Johnny and get autographs. Peter was not feeling well, but I thought I'd have another chance someday to meet him. I did not.

Wolfheart Tyhiyys

For me this album is peak Wolfheart, a project from multi-instrumentalist Tuomas Saukkonen (Before the Dawn, Dawn of Solace, Black Sun Aeon) and was also my introduction to this band. It's the perfect blend of serious heavyiness that still retains the beauty of Winterborn (first album). The song Boneyard is a brutal headbanger that's made even more dark with the almost Omen theme-like choir backing vocals. The Flood is just brilliant in the way that it blends those previously mentioned elements with an anguished tone and might be my favorite track. I got to see them on tour for Constellation of the Blacklight and they played it! Excellent show also. Although the vocal style for Wolfheart is primarily Saukkonen's growl, I appreciate the clean backing vocals on this album by Lauri Silvonen, and the guitar solos provided by Mika Lammassaari are always excellent, though the riffs in Call of the Winter are catchy as hell, this song incorporates a nice little piano interlude as well. Thyhiyys is the closing track and it's so appropriate as a closer, tying together all the elements and vibes of the album into one finale.