Not All Bands Age Like Fine Wines
That’s not a secret. We have talked about plenty of bands who (we think) are past their prime. There are some that lost there their way, but got back on course, and improving while they’re at it. You have others who adapt to the times and, in some cases, go so far as two “sell out.” Then you have others who don’t give a shit about your wine and are just pretty much going to keep going as they always have. (For those of you in the cheap seats – I just described each of the three bands we review this week.) Oh! And Mr. Mike Clancey (now troop leader of Horror Scouts) joins us for the live review!
Reviews:
Amon Amarth – Jomsviking (Metal Blade)
Caliban – Gravity (Century Media)
Rotten Sound – Abuse to Suffer (Season of Mist)
Live Review:
Norma Jean, He Is Legend, Forevermore, Rival Choir at The Palladium (upstairs) in Worcester, MA on March 31, 2016
Amon Amarth – Jomsviking
Caliban – Gravity
Rotten Sound – Abuse To Suffer
The Sideshow Podcast 
I’ve been listening to Jomsviking a lot this week and I’m probably more with Brian on this album in leaning towards giving it a 5.
Amon Amarth is not a band that is going to progress beyond Viking metal, nor do I want them to do so. But if there was one thing they could do to evolve but still stay within the genre is to make an album with a story. I hesitate to use the term “concept album” because that term has too many meanings that are not specific enough. Two Pink Floyd albums Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall are concept albums. The Wall is a story with characters and plot, while Dark Side is just a collection of songs loosely grouped around the theme of things that drive people crazy. Jomsviking has an actual story that is comprehensible (not all these types of story albums are comprehensible, for example Mastodon’s Crack the Skye). The bottom line for me on Jomsviking is that it holds up very well on repeated listenings. Even though the song “Raise Your Horns” is a bit of “low hanging fruit” that isn’t very complex of a song, the rest of the album features enough variation and interesting stuff in there (such as the song featuring Doro) to make me want to listen to it again and again.
Nick says that Amon Amarth has always been a “divisive” band? I don’t see it. Who doesn’t like Amon Amarth? Where is the “divide” when it relates to them? I see them as possibly the most popular death metal band in the world (I’m counting melodic death metal as a sub-genre of death metal). I know a couple of people who don’t really like death metal but still like Amon Amarth. A lot of people are turned off by death metal because the vocals are often unintelligible (refer to last week’s discussion of Wormed), but Johan Hegg is one of the most comprehensible death metal vocalists out there which leads to the band having a wide appeal.