Palms - Palms (2013)

Palms is a kind of superband with members of Isis and Deftones' Chino Moreno as frontman. Expectations were high for the album and the band delivers but perhaps not in a way that will satisfy everyone.

The album moves at a slow pace like a small boat sailing gently through a pristine calm ocean. This is a dreamy kind of post-rock concerned with mood and atmosphere rather than riffs and Chino Moreno's silky vocals suit the music perfectly. The songs are also quite long with progressive rock tendencies. 

Some may find the calm and quiet of these songs boring, there's no metal here, no big guitar bursts (well a few really well measured ones), but the album is so beautiful, soothing and uplifting that I personally would nominate the ten minute long Mission Sunset as my particular highlight. 

I love everything Deftones has done but I've always wanted Deftones to explore their more melodic and dreamy side in one album. Forget about metal, consider it a one time experiment and just go with it. I don't think that will ever happen but this album gives me a bit of an idea of what it could sound like.

Palms may not be for everyone, some will miss bigger guitar moments, but I'm captivated by the utter beauty of this debut album and I hope there's more to come. This debut album is a triumph in every possible way.

Rating: Heavy Rotation

Tristania - The Darkest White (2013)

Tristania has been around for a long time and the band carries the heavy burden of creating two albums that blended perfectly, doom, death, black and gothic metal in a powerful and epic scale with a symphonic base. 

Unfortunately, fans compare their recent output to their early albums and complain but with so many band members leaving, the band is now a completely different beast. Darkest White is a great album that wavers between some brutal moments (as we would expect from the band) and more melodic gothic songs. 

My personal highlights include the powerful opener Number (see the video below), the gothic Himmelfall,  the anthemic Requiem, the surprisingly uplifting Diagnosis and the gentle, melodic Lavender. Overall, I find that the more melodic moments work better but as usual Tristania knows how to get the balance between heavy and powerful moments and quieter melodic passages right.

It's not their best album. I'm sure that many will still miss the old sound and moan the absence of Vibeke, but Tristania is not looking back and this album is packed with great songs.

Rating: Good Vibrations

A Pale Horse Named Death - Lay My Soul To Waste (2013)

The album's cover gives you a very good indication of what you will find here. The album is dark and gloomy, a good cross of the darker and harder shades of grunge music with doom metal. 

The riffs are strong and ominous, the vocals clean and mid-range (more in rock style than metal), the lyrical content deals with stories of love and deals with the devil and the use of sound effects, interludes and an organ give the album a great horror cinematic feel.


The album is deliberately dark and gloomy to great effect but it also has a couple of brighter moments with sleazy blues-rock Killer by Night and the playful Devil Came With a Smile. 

Overall this is a great dark rock/metal album.

Rating: Good Vibrations

Nosound - Afterthoughts (2013)

Originating from Italy Giancarlo Erra (the heart of Nosound) has been busy creating outstanding music for the last decade but Afterthoughts, contrary to the name of the album is no afterthought at all; I'd say this is the best Nosound album yet. 

The band is often seen as progressive rock but Afterthoughts has no complex rhythm changes and structures, instead the music is deceivingly complex in its simplicity and the focus is on atmosphere. 

Every single track in the album is there for good reason. The album flows seamlessly from hauntingly beautiful landscape to landscape with melancholic force and occasional, simmering, contained anger. The guitars, drums, percussion, keyboards and cello create hypnotic layers that sound simple and complex, symphonic but organic and grounded, never pompous.

I dare say that this will surely have to be one of the best albums this year. An outstanding effort from start to end.

The band release Wherever You Are as the single (see the video below), but I couldn't contain myself and I've also put the first song in the album which is my particular favourite.

Rating: Heavy Rotation