Secret Rule – Uninverse Review

By GardensTale

Well folks, it’s been a good run. This is without a doubt the longest I have gone without landing myself an awful corset-core album. I cherry-picked from the promo bin a little more, I got lucky with a few random rolls. But the dice always turn against you sometime, as any D&D player will attest. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the genre and the worst band name since Significant Point. Then I saw the cover and my fears were confirmed because LOOK AT IT! Gaze upon this absolute debacle and weep for laughter. No amount of Photoshop skill could have saved the ludicrous self-serious poses the band assumed here, and indeed, no amount of Photoshop skill was applied. Meanwhile, the promo text confidently declared Uninverse1 a masterpiece of emotional connection to the human experience. My expectations were below the floorboards before the first note started, so can Secret Rule prove me wrong?

Initially, I did not think so. The electronic beat that kicks off “Disorder” and the hushed repeated ‘you’re eeeeevil, you’re eeeeevil’ reactivated my funny bone within seconds. As is tradition in corset-core, the music comes second to the vocals, which in this case belong to one Angela Di Vincenzo. To be fair, her technique is not terrible. She has good power, and in the lower registers, her timbre has a Doro Pesch-like quality. She doesn’t hit all the notes, which is worrying on a studio recording, but I’ve certainly heard worse. However, her performance is stuffed with squealy pop affectations, presumably intended to emulate emotional engagement. With a voice that already tends towards the shrill in the higher registers, the squeaks make for an uncomfortable listening experience as I find myself wincing every other sentence. Combined with equally overused and forced vibrato and unfortunate amounts of ESL,2 the vocals overflow with pop excess that only becomes more off-putting the longer Uninverse plays.

But looking past the vocals and peeking under the hood, the songwriting is often surprisingly able. The focus is on the choruses, as expected, and across the album, those contain some strong vocal lines, which even Di Vincenzo’s over-singing can’t hide. Furthermore, beside the choruses, actual riffs dot the album, such as on “Time Zero” and “Gravity on Us.” The quality drum performance eschews the tedium of the standard snare-kick 4-count, adding fills and frills for a more dynamic style that brings actual variations in energy. Though the bass gets buried more often than not, a few passages allow it to shine. If it weren’t for most of the surface bullshit, a few excisions could have made this a passing power metal album.

But like a half-decent cake covered with a mountain of fondant, the surface bullshit ruins everything underneath. The vocals are only one symptom of this affliction. Several tracks give a leading role to the keyboard, and the keyboard is fucking garbage, an icepick assault to both eardrums even in short bursts. It is the leading cause of death of “Disorder”3 and has me afeared every time I see “I Am” or “From Null to Life” coming up in the tracklist. Between the keys, the pop-focus of the vocals, the clumps of electronic beats, and the flat, vocal-centered production all point to a band trying too hard to sound ‘modern’ and aging itself back to the cringiest leftovers of the 00’s.

I know you and I love a good takedown now and then. Hell, it was practically My Thing for a while here at AMG. Based on the cover art and the first track, Secret Rule seemed ripe for the plucking. But I couldn’t fully commit to the bash-fest here, because unpleasant though Uninverse might be, there is a modicum of talent hidden in the background that spills out through the cracks, which makes the end result more a tragedy than a comedy. Were this a younger band, I might express hope for their improvement in the future. But this is Secret Rule’s 8th proper album4 in 9 years. Hope is dead and the keyboards killed it. At least the band photos are a laugh.

Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Lucky Bob
Websites: secretrule.bandcamp.com | secretrule.it | facebook.com/secretruleband
Releases Worldwide: November 24th, 2023

#15 #2023 #Doro #ItalianMetal #LuckyBob #Nov23 #PowerMetal #Review #Reviews #SecretRule #SignificantPoint #SymphonicMetal #Uninverse

Coven Japan – Earthlings Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

The past still lives around us—a phone booth dilapidated with its tethered telecommunications device extracted, an eerie, abandoned Sears parking lot, Def Leppard jammin’ for the 6:00 pm crowd at the grocery store. Even for new members of the heavy metal clan, the sounds of royalty—Maiden, Priest, Saxon—often line the path to whatever extreme they may later fall into. It’s no surprise, then, to read that new Japanese export Coven Japan declares themselves as a young band influenced by 70s bands like Angel Witch and 80s bands like Satan.1 It’s a dangerous proposition. When you wield such well-known and mighty names in your promo blurb, you better be ready to deliver the goods. Does Earthlings earn its place amongst the Gods?

To no one’s surprise, Coven Japan does not surpass the works of time-tested, riff-imitated classics. That doesn’t mean that Coven Japan can’t be fun, though, and that element of their 70s rock, 80s heavy metal stained sound shines through on Earthling’s most driving cuts (“Land of the Rising Sun,” “Apocalypse,” “Lost Humanity”). And among these tracks, which can remind me a little too much of hall of fame metalworks in riff identity for comfort (“Land of…” – “Aces High,”2 “Lost Humanity” – “Heading out to the Highway”), there lies the speed-driven, punky ambition of early Loudness and Anthem albums to keep Earthlings from being pure NWoBHM pastiche. In the same vein as their countrymen, Earthlings too possesses a warm, decently spacious production with crispy edges—not as clear and biting as the European bands that pioneered the sound. But that’s OK, this kind of louder, rawer construction channels the same windows down, knob-cranked attitude as you would expect from proper heavy metal.

Of course, as is the curse of many Japanese bands playing with this throwback temporal mindset—Significant Point and Risingfall come to mind—the vocals often can pose a hurdle. And, in a form true to this troubled expression, these issues come about most when the band dials back speed for ballad territory, the intro to “Night Flyer” posing the most challenging earuption of the run. The sing-song harmony has a quality to it that is fitting though, same with the quasi-ballad title track that follows. But really vocalist Taka’s wails shine best against an urgent bassline, jangling chords, and searing lead melodies (“What Goes Around Comes Around, “Apocalypse”). 2023 doesn’t need any more ballads.

What it does need more of are the rollicking, guitar-fueled excursions that Coven Japan brings to bookend the lesser clips throughout Earthlings. Good albums start with a bang, and the one-two burst of “Land of the Rising Sun” and “What Goes…” pack that same old school punch that you would find on scrappy classics like Iron Maiden3 or Fly to the Rainbow4 (Scorpions), right down to the leads that swell from thin amp pull to distortion flurry for maximum impact. The popping snare can get in the way from time to time, being one of the sounds borrowed from 80s and not in a great way. But when it comes to numbers that feel more of that time, the Satan-leaning “Apocalypse” or the stadium-ready “Return of the Souls,” it works well against loud riffcraft and bouncing, bluesy grooves. That overdriven heft helps the to-the-point closer “Lost Humanity” flourish in its reverb-soaked chorus chants and snappy twin-lead breakaway.

Coven Japan makes their fair share of missteps throughout this debut full-length outing—the repetitive epic “To Sanctuary – March for the Voiceless,” the over-balladization of a couple of choice tracks—but they do so with feet planted and volume set to rock. For an album that borrows so much from the elders of the halls of metal, Earthlings lands with scrapes and bruises of character from each stumble and success. To put it plainly, Coven Japan has heart and it pours through in every note, which goes a long way in pushing through some of the less-than-stellar moments. And did I mention how absolutely fantastic the cover is? If I remember nothing else of this later, I will remember lady demon with laser eyes. Likewise, if Coven Japan remembers tomorrow is a new day to shine, and that this outing is but a point of entry into future fan’s ears, then they’ll realize there’s no turning back on this path of heavy metal.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7| Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: No Remorse Records
Websites: coven.site | coven.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/coven.japan
Releases Worldwide: November 24th, 2023

#2023 #30 #AngelWitch #Anthem #CovenJapan #Earthlings #HeavyMetal #IronMaiden #JapaneseMetal #JudasPriest #Loudness #NoRemorseRecords #Nov23 #Review #Reviews #Risingfall #Satan #Saxon #Scorpions #SignificantPoint