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Alley - Amphibious review




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Reviewer:
7.3

5 users:
7
Band: Alley
Album: Amphibious
Release date: March 2013


01. Lighthouse
02. Weather Report
03. Amphibious
04. Skulls & Bones
05. Time Signal
06. Washed Away

Alley are a progressive death metal band from Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

You can't spell "progressive death" without using the letters "O-P-E-T & H" (well unless you spell worse than K7? ) and that's probably the best place to start in describing Alley's sound.

Amphibious features six songs ranging from just under eight minutes to north of a quarter-hour in length. These songs wind their way along, alternating between moderate paced thundering distortion and roared vocals and jazzy interludes and passages with clean vocals.

Sound familiar?

Now, sure, I've used Mikael and Co as a "sounds like" example in the past simply because, well, they're amongst the biggest metal bands on the planet and their dynamic is widely understood. It's an easy comparison for acts writing nine minute long tracks that go harsh to clean and back again.

In this case it's a pretty direct comparison as the similarities go far beyond just playing a vaguely similar style of music - in regards to composition even my tin ear was able to immediately draw similarities down to even vocal patterns.

If that sounds like a slam, it's not, not in particular. Seems a lot of bands wear their influences on their sleeves. Besides, the band pretty much states as much on the album's bandcamp page.

Alley do it and do it well. I found myself enjoying this almost as much as My Arms, Your Still Park. Well in the same ballpark as almost.

So if you're a fan of Opeth who was pissed off by Heritage, this will probably slip nicely in the slot in your CD rack voided when threw your copy of Mikael's latest out the window. Or, more likely, the sequence of 1's and 0's voided somewhere in your hard drive when you hit "ragedelete!"


Rating breakdown
Performance: 8
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 5
Production: 8





Written on 10.07.2013 by BitterCOld has been officially reviewing albums for MetalStorm since 2009.


Comments

Comments: 5   Visited by: 121 users
10.07.2013 - 14:53
mz

"So if you're a fan of Opeth who was pissed off by Heritage..."
pissed off would be an extreme and strong word here for me but I for sure would like old school opeth
Tanks for the review, will definitely look into this record
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Giving my ears a rest from music.
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11.07.2013 - 09:06
Mattybu

Is it just me or is an Opeth imitator that gets a 7 possibly the least appealing possible situation for wanting to listen to an album..

probably just me. xD
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11.07.2013 - 18:09
Rating: 7
BitterCOld
The Ancient One
Written by Mattybu on 11.07.2013 at 09:06

Is it just me or is an Opeth imitator that gets a 7 possibly the least appealing possible situation for wanting to listen to an album..

probably just me. xD


depends how people rate albums. my average rating for Opeth is a shade over 7... three 8's, three 7's, two 6's.

in most places good means, well, good. on MS it seems to a lot of people it means crap.
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get the fuck off my lawn.

Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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11.07.2013 - 22:31
Mattybu

Written by BitterCOld on 11.07.2013 at 18:09

Written by Mattybu on 11.07.2013 at 09:06

Is it just me or is an Opeth imitator that gets a 7 possibly the least appealing possible situation for wanting to listen to an album..

probably just me. xD


depends how people rate albums. my average rating for Opeth is a shade over 7... three 8's, three 7's, two 6's.

in most places good means, well, good. on MS it seems to a lot of people it means crap.


That's true, I have found it odd on here how a 7 can be interpreted as bad, especially considering how clear cut the rating system is here. Even a 6 can be somewhat enjoyable.

Although, I guess a 7 is saying there's nothing special about the album, no "wow factor", to quote a pseudo-celebrity storage locker buyer. And if the album isn't going the extra mile, in my opinion you might as well pick your favourite Opeth album and give that one another go. To each his own though, and I haven't heard Amphibious yet.
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26.06.2014 - 09:56
Rating: 7
LeKiwi
High Fist Prog
Not sure how you can rate WS, BwP, or GR with the same value which you have given to this album. Despite that it was pulled off well I honestly can't remember a single moment from this entire album. This is the first true copycat I've heard: it sounds as if they've mastered the chord shapes, scales, and rhythms used by Opeth, but mechanically utilised these techniques with limited musical intuition.
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