Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Review from Ragnarök Radio (UK)
Rating 4/5
I’ll get it out of the way right from the start - Switch Opens are a Swedish metal band. Yeah, I know, you’re probably scuttling for cover toward the stereotype of all those identical ‘Gothenburg scene’ melodic death metal bands…but fear not. To start with, Switch Opens are from Stockholm, some 300 miles away from Gothenburg. And when it comes to metal, their sound too is a comparable distance away.
No, this isn’t another melodeath screamathon. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is. It’s really quite fascinating to dream up a list of Switch Opens’ probable influences while listening through this album - they create a haze of fuzz that screams Kyuss, but some of their riffs sound more rooted in Southern Metal, with the likes of Down or Corrosion of Conformity. Their down ’n’ dirty groove kind of puts you in mind of Motörhead, albeit a more doomy Motörhead, maybe on Valium…and on top of that, they appear to share a name with a Soundgarden song. Putting all of that together, I suppose, makes this seem like the work of hairy stoners.
Before we delve further into that, a clarifying note; this technically isn’t the first album from Switch Opens. They released two others under the name ‘Fingerspitzengefühl’, before opting for a change of moniker as well as record company for this release. Probably a good move, as frankly a band with an utterly unpronounceable name playing weird psychedelic metal isn’t going to be conquering the world. How are they going to woo the crowd when they‘ve scored that big support slot? “Hello Stockholm, we’re Fingerspitzengefühl! No, Fingerspitzengefühl. F, i, n, g…”. It’s no surprise their old Myspace only attracted 2,000 fans.
Anyway, I was mumbling something about hairy stoners…it’s true that Switch Opens make noises like they live in a permanent cloud of pot. But a lot of the time there’s also something a lot more intelligent going on in their music. They combine the fuzz and bassy grit of stoner bands like Kyuss and all those mentioned above with the more progressive leanings of Mastodon or Opeth. There’s something bold and creative lurking in Switch Opens, and not bold and creative in that hairy-stoner way. Which usually seems to involve crisps.
The musicianship throughout is proficient, but with no offence meant to drummer Anders Bartonek and guitarists Thomas Bergstrand and Mikael Tuominen, I’d like to single out one member of the band. Vocalist (and bassist) Jesper Skarin puts in a fantastically diverse performance, melding seamlessly from melodic clean singing in songs like ’Express Death’ and ’The Electric Hour’ to frankly mad growled phases, such as in ‘Paper Walls’. The latter shows perhaps the most progressive side of the band - it features a weird, growling intro, building into a fast, heavy verse riff and bizarre chorus, with Skarin still roaring away convincingly. However, all of a sudden there’s an almost tranquil acoustic interlude, complete with synth strings, before the fuzz distortion kicks back in through the lead guitar and we end with heavy riffage again. Mad.
That song is put side-by-side with ‘He Dives Down’, which is much more straightforward and frankly groove-based - it basically sounds like Orange Gobin with a theremin intro - and for a second, you almost wonder if you’re listening to the same band. Only Skarin’s distinctive vocals and that fuzzy sound that’s starting to become familiar by that point keep you right. Switch Opens can go through a terrific amount of ideas just in the space of a single song, as I might have alluded to earlier when describing ’Paper Walls’, and this is noticeable in most other tracks on the album; go get lost in the nine-minute expanse of ’Terra Incognita’, for a further example. At times, it almost seems like they’re trying too many different things - I often decry the lack of imagination and inspiration in albums, but it’s also good when a band actually know what style they’re gunning for. That said, I think Switch Opens just about do enough to restrain that rampaging creative beast at their heart and present a unified front - no matter what kind of madness they’re weaving, you really can tell it’s the same band.
Alright, before we wrap this thing up, I’d better apologise to Sweden. I know they’ve brought us more than just melodic death metal, which I don‘t actually have any beef with. In fact, they’ve done very well indeed for a country shaped like a penis. There’s a proud tradition of cracking Swedish bands - Amon Amarth, Opeth and Meshuggah kind of speak for themselves. This album is a bit mad, and at times a bit disjointed, top-heavy with ideas, but Switch Opens have a bit of creativity about them, and are trying something different. As such, I’d definitely say they have the potential to someday be joining that list of luminary Swedes.
- Phil Sim
Ragnarök Radio
I’ll get it out of the way right from the start - Switch Opens are a Swedish metal band. Yeah, I know, you’re probably scuttling for cover toward the stereotype of all those identical ‘Gothenburg scene’ melodic death metal bands…but fear not. To start with, Switch Opens are from Stockholm, some 300 miles away from Gothenburg. And when it comes to metal, their sound too is a comparable distance away.
No, this isn’t another melodeath screamathon. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what it is. It’s really quite fascinating to dream up a list of Switch Opens’ probable influences while listening through this album - they create a haze of fuzz that screams Kyuss, but some of their riffs sound more rooted in Southern Metal, with the likes of Down or Corrosion of Conformity. Their down ’n’ dirty groove kind of puts you in mind of Motörhead, albeit a more doomy Motörhead, maybe on Valium…and on top of that, they appear to share a name with a Soundgarden song. Putting all of that together, I suppose, makes this seem like the work of hairy stoners.
Before we delve further into that, a clarifying note; this technically isn’t the first album from Switch Opens. They released two others under the name ‘Fingerspitzengefühl’, before opting for a change of moniker as well as record company for this release. Probably a good move, as frankly a band with an utterly unpronounceable name playing weird psychedelic metal isn’t going to be conquering the world. How are they going to woo the crowd when they‘ve scored that big support slot? “Hello Stockholm, we’re Fingerspitzengefühl! No, Fingerspitzengefühl. F, i, n, g…”. It’s no surprise their old Myspace only attracted 2,000 fans.
Anyway, I was mumbling something about hairy stoners…it’s true that Switch Opens make noises like they live in a permanent cloud of pot. But a lot of the time there’s also something a lot more intelligent going on in their music. They combine the fuzz and bassy grit of stoner bands like Kyuss and all those mentioned above with the more progressive leanings of Mastodon or Opeth. There’s something bold and creative lurking in Switch Opens, and not bold and creative in that hairy-stoner way. Which usually seems to involve crisps.
The musicianship throughout is proficient, but with no offence meant to drummer Anders Bartonek and guitarists Thomas Bergstrand and Mikael Tuominen, I’d like to single out one member of the band. Vocalist (and bassist) Jesper Skarin puts in a fantastically diverse performance, melding seamlessly from melodic clean singing in songs like ’Express Death’ and ’The Electric Hour’ to frankly mad growled phases, such as in ‘Paper Walls’. The latter shows perhaps the most progressive side of the band - it features a weird, growling intro, building into a fast, heavy verse riff and bizarre chorus, with Skarin still roaring away convincingly. However, all of a sudden there’s an almost tranquil acoustic interlude, complete with synth strings, before the fuzz distortion kicks back in through the lead guitar and we end with heavy riffage again. Mad.
That song is put side-by-side with ‘He Dives Down’, which is much more straightforward and frankly groove-based - it basically sounds like Orange Gobin with a theremin intro - and for a second, you almost wonder if you’re listening to the same band. Only Skarin’s distinctive vocals and that fuzzy sound that’s starting to become familiar by that point keep you right. Switch Opens can go through a terrific amount of ideas just in the space of a single song, as I might have alluded to earlier when describing ’Paper Walls’, and this is noticeable in most other tracks on the album; go get lost in the nine-minute expanse of ’Terra Incognita’, for a further example. At times, it almost seems like they’re trying too many different things - I often decry the lack of imagination and inspiration in albums, but it’s also good when a band actually know what style they’re gunning for. That said, I think Switch Opens just about do enough to restrain that rampaging creative beast at their heart and present a unified front - no matter what kind of madness they’re weaving, you really can tell it’s the same band.
Alright, before we wrap this thing up, I’d better apologise to Sweden. I know they’ve brought us more than just melodic death metal, which I don‘t actually have any beef with. In fact, they’ve done very well indeed for a country shaped like a penis. There’s a proud tradition of cracking Swedish bands - Amon Amarth, Opeth and Meshuggah kind of speak for themselves. This album is a bit mad, and at times a bit disjointed, top-heavy with ideas, but Switch Opens have a bit of creativity about them, and are trying something different. As such, I’d definitely say they have the potential to someday be joining that list of luminary Swedes.
- Phil Sim
Ragnarök Radio
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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