Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 8:03 pm
I am aware of Anglagard and I like them a lot, thanks for the heads up anyway.
I think you should spin it again, it might strike you differently now than it did in the past exactly because now this sort of music is very much not in the forefront of the HM movement. Circa 1993-4 it seemed HM would castrate itself to achieve 'mainstream appeal' (and to a degree it did, I certainly hear no libido or real aggression in a Dimmu Borgir, say) and at the time anyone into HM for the guts of it might have been horrified that power metal was 'progressing' into this sort of thing. But the dice were cast and the future turned how it did and the underground is here and well and libido exists where it is needed so now Xerxes and other bands like them aren't a 'threat' insomuch as they are an interesting artifact of the times. You might find a better place for them in your listening from that point of view.
I think the performances are excellent, personally, though I'd have preferred the drums more up in the mix, there's some excellent flash being completely downplayed here.
I think the vocal processing is very fitting, as you say, in shaping the 'dreamy' effect. Keep in mind that the first record has much less processed vocals and the singer, while of modest range, never has hit a bad note in these two recordings, so I don't think it's the case of masking the lack of talent. Especially not when there's bands like Mercury Rising that have a generally capable singer that in a few songs is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OFF-KEY... Xerxes dude is humble, like a Peter Hammill type of voice or even Marillion Fishy sorta vibe, but he doesn't actually sing bad anywhere in the two releases.
I don't think this is progressive rock really. There's double-leads and chunky guitar playing everywhere, it's clear Xerxes are coming from a progressive metal background. The end result is very soft and pleasant of course but does that make it 'progressive rock' suddenly? I contest that point really... not that I would mind it being progressive rock, I don't have anything against the genre and in fact I completely adore about 10-15 bands in that idiom it's just that I think this is EXACTLY what is meant when I say 'progressive Heavy Metal', at least circa 1993-4. Think also of Mayfair, of Soul Cages... middle-period Sieges Even... that sort of thing. It's dead and gone now, but we shouldn't just rewrite history and call it progressive rock.
You mention Mekong Delta, Watchtower, Sieges Even (early)... these bands in my opinion were technothrash and whereas a lot of that translated to progressive metal later on, you can't say it's libido-less or lacks aggression. It's usually my preffered genre when I want to hear challenging HM because I enjoy how it's both gutsy and also avant-garde to a degree, but the progressive metal that came to be by definition sacrifices some aspects of extremity to hunt for others. Xerxes certainly doesn't hit the same spot as Rush or Gentle Giant, for me. It's still more extreme (some type of extremity is in the core of Heavy Metal, while not in the core of rock in my opinion).
I do concur that there really wouldn't need to be a lot of bands like Xerxes out there though, even if this movement had survived. I certainly have no use for the 100s of Dream Theater clones that sprung out during the nineties and killed that particular subgenre. I just wish there would still be an audience for the worthwhile bands in this subgenre to not just wither out due to lack of interest... then again progressive metal really was a transient genre, no band made more than 2-3 records in this form before stagnating so maybe the death of progressive metal was for the best. This farce of bands like Katagory V that claim to be progressive-minded and then just copy Parallels for 5 records really doesn't help anything.
I think you should spin it again, it might strike you differently now than it did in the past exactly because now this sort of music is very much not in the forefront of the HM movement. Circa 1993-4 it seemed HM would castrate itself to achieve 'mainstream appeal' (and to a degree it did, I certainly hear no libido or real aggression in a Dimmu Borgir, say) and at the time anyone into HM for the guts of it might have been horrified that power metal was 'progressing' into this sort of thing. But the dice were cast and the future turned how it did and the underground is here and well and libido exists where it is needed so now Xerxes and other bands like them aren't a 'threat' insomuch as they are an interesting artifact of the times. You might find a better place for them in your listening from that point of view.
I think the performances are excellent, personally, though I'd have preferred the drums more up in the mix, there's some excellent flash being completely downplayed here.
I think the vocal processing is very fitting, as you say, in shaping the 'dreamy' effect. Keep in mind that the first record has much less processed vocals and the singer, while of modest range, never has hit a bad note in these two recordings, so I don't think it's the case of masking the lack of talent. Especially not when there's bands like Mercury Rising that have a generally capable singer that in a few songs is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY OFF-KEY... Xerxes dude is humble, like a Peter Hammill type of voice or even Marillion Fishy sorta vibe, but he doesn't actually sing bad anywhere in the two releases.
I don't think this is progressive rock really. There's double-leads and chunky guitar playing everywhere, it's clear Xerxes are coming from a progressive metal background. The end result is very soft and pleasant of course but does that make it 'progressive rock' suddenly? I contest that point really... not that I would mind it being progressive rock, I don't have anything against the genre and in fact I completely adore about 10-15 bands in that idiom it's just that I think this is EXACTLY what is meant when I say 'progressive Heavy Metal', at least circa 1993-4. Think also of Mayfair, of Soul Cages... middle-period Sieges Even... that sort of thing. It's dead and gone now, but we shouldn't just rewrite history and call it progressive rock.
You mention Mekong Delta, Watchtower, Sieges Even (early)... these bands in my opinion were technothrash and whereas a lot of that translated to progressive metal later on, you can't say it's libido-less or lacks aggression. It's usually my preffered genre when I want to hear challenging HM because I enjoy how it's both gutsy and also avant-garde to a degree, but the progressive metal that came to be by definition sacrifices some aspects of extremity to hunt for others. Xerxes certainly doesn't hit the same spot as Rush or Gentle Giant, for me. It's still more extreme (some type of extremity is in the core of Heavy Metal, while not in the core of rock in my opinion).
I do concur that there really wouldn't need to be a lot of bands like Xerxes out there though, even if this movement had survived. I certainly have no use for the 100s of Dream Theater clones that sprung out during the nineties and killed that particular subgenre. I just wish there would still be an audience for the worthwhile bands in this subgenre to not just wither out due to lack of interest... then again progressive metal really was a transient genre, no band made more than 2-3 records in this form before stagnating so maybe the death of progressive metal was for the best. This farce of bands like Katagory V that claim to be progressive-minded and then just copy Parallels for 5 records really doesn't help anything.
