Reviews roundup – Eternal Journey vs. Happyness vs. Archangel vs. Alwin Smoke vs. Piqued Jacks

Reviews roundup –  Eternal Journey vs. Happyness vs. Archangel vs. Alwin Smoke vs. Piqued Jacks

ETERNAL JOURNEY
Nebular
independent

Right, what’s happening here then.  Oh, it’s some prog metal from Germany, which is about as big a surprise as the haar over Musselburgh on a summer day.  Eternal Journey, for it is they, were formed in Cologne (the town, not the after shave) in 2007 by guitarist Alex Papatheodorou, hereafter known as Alex P.

And it’s basically him, with a host of guests, firing off in a Ayreon meets Avantasia manner.  Which is fine by me.  He’s already released an EP called “A Space Metal Adventure”, which should be a clue to his sound, and an album called “Threshold of Pain” before this, so he’s had a bit of practice.

Now, it may not be perfect, but his mixture of prog and metal, is a mighty fine one.  There is no reinventing the wheel, just the schematics of the genre built into a great sound on songs like ‘Nebula: Movement I’, ‘Alley Road’ and ‘Promise & Demise’.  A good one.

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HAPPYNESS
Weird Little Birthday
Moshi Moshi

Now I can’t quite remember what this type of music was called back when I were a lad.  Shoegaze? Slacker? Lo-fi? Shite?  Summat like that, anyroads.  And it transpires that a whole new generation of students with pretend hand-me-down overcoats are still doing this sort of thing.  Who knew?

The ironically named Happyness are they, and it seems like they’ve got the whole Pavement back catalogue, and the Nirvana records before “Nevermind” to fall back on for their sound.  However, and anyone in said black overcoat should perk their ears up about now, this is “not quite a concept album about a boy who shares his birthday with Jesus Christ and eventually is driven insane with jealousy”.

Me, the closest I got to understanding a concept album was “Girls, Girs, Girls” by Motley Crue.  But down in Sarf London they do things different.  There’s moments of jangle, moments of fuzz, pottymouth songs called ‘Baby Jesus (Jelly Boy)’ and one of them internet autobot song title generators.  ‘Regan’s Lost Weekend (Porno Queen)’, anyone.  And if that weren’t enough to have you salivating / suiciding, they’ve even got a nine minute song lurking round the corner.

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ARCHANGEL
Archangel
independent

Dudes, we’re off to Tampa Bay, Florida, to meet a band who have opened shows for death metal legends Obituary, and who reckon Iron Maiden are the best band. Ever.  And, guess what, they sound like an eighties metal band!  Result.

Yup, this six piece band like to thrash out without ever turning into a thrash band, which is quite a tricky thing to do.  And they’re good at it, without ever threatening to spill over into great.  However, it’s still an interesting listen, mainly due to the keyboard frills, which help turn some generic material into interesting arrangements.

They have some metal thrashing material like ‘Divine Descent’, ‘Wings of Death’ and ‘To Hell and Back, which would make a great EP, so you may want to stream or download first.

https://archangeltampa.bandcamp.com/album/archangel-2

ALWIN SMOKE
Spirit’s Free
independent

Back to Germany now and it’s time for some seventies melodic, bluesy rock, with a few instrumentals thrown in for good measure.

When he gets his classical Blackmore on, with ‘Sunset’ and ‘Hungarian Dance No 5’, it shows what a really good musician he is.  And elsewhere, you can tell that he’s got a few Rainbow and Whitesnake albums from the seventies tucked away in his collection.

Herr Smoke aka Alex Weinrauch has been at this a while, having played and recorded with a band called Arrest since the early nineties before heading off into a solo career, of which this is his third album.  And it’s a pleasant listen, albeit the songs have a tendency to sound like the B-side to a great single. I’d probably enjoy this music a lot more in a live environment, but I’d certainly listen to an all instrumental set with anticipation.

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PIQUED JACKS
Climb Like Ivy Does
independent

It’s off to Austin, Texas now, via Tuscany, Italy for some psychedelic indie-rock.

Now I’m guessing that E-King, Penguinsane, littleladle and ThEd0g are probably not their real names, but at least it gives you the option of sacking someone and then reusing their name, in the hope that no-one notices.  I mean, U2 are onto their third Bono, and no-one has twigged yet.  Apparently, the band name has some sort of smutty connotation, but we’ve no truck with that round our way, bar to apologise on their behalf.

Back to the music, and it seems that after a couple of EP releases in Italy, the whole band upped and moved to the American colonies, presumably unaware of the fact that the Americans had some bands of their own, settling in Austin, with plans to take over the world.

Now, you’ve probably noticed that the plan hasn’t worked out yet, but it’s no surprise that the hometown of Roky Erikson would give them some elbow room to play some weird ass tunes like ‘Mooody’, with its seventies horror vibe.  There is half an album of interesting tunes here, which makes it a right blinking nuisance when a generic eighties REM type song comes along and messes it up.

It’s good, but I suspect it would have made a fantastic EP.

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