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Apocalyptica: 7th symphony

22/10/10 || Altmer

Apocalyptica are a bunch of odd fucks. They are all classically trained cellists from a Finnish academy, so you’d be surprised to hear they actually do metal – but they do. This ain’t fucken chamber music they play (though some of their shit is tame) but they know their shit. The band started off playing Metallica covers, and added a few different ones into the mix: Slayer, Sepultura, Faith No More, and even a rousing rendition of Edvard Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” featured on previous albums.

When they decided they’d fiddled around with basic amplification and cellos long enough to make an album with more own material, they realized that they needed a drummer. Unfortunately, for their fourth album, they didn’t find one in time to join the band, but since these guys had such awesome skills, they met Dave Lombardo somewhere and said “Dude, wanna do some drums for us?”. Lombardo said yes, obviously, having been impressed with them from the minute. The story goes that the band were at a festival, and Lombardo saw their set, and went to them in their dressing room, and asked if he could jam with them. The band said yes, and they played a few Slayer songs. At the end of it, Lombardo was so impressed that he gave them his phone number and said “If you ever need me to play drums for you, give me a call”. Since that day, Lombardo has been a regular collaborator – they have a regular drummer now, but since he doesn’t use double bass, there is always a song written specially for that kind of stuff – played by Lombardo himself. Man, you must feel good as a band when you have that kind of talent at your disposal.

Basically they didn’t do many more covers after that (a David Bowie one, with Till from Rammstein), but they did original compositions only, some of them with guest vocals (none of the members sing, the band is all-instrumental). They have pretty much hired everyone they possibly could to work for them, and besides aforementioned Till Lindemann and Dave Lombardo, the list includes Corey Taylor, Cristina Scabbia, Ville Valo, Sandra Nasic, Adam Gontier, that The Rasmus dude, and a bunch more that I can’t think of. This album features a bunch of them as well.

Now for what they actually sound like: cello metal. You heard that right. There are NO GUITARS ANYWHERE. All the riffs, bass lines, solos are done on cellos. The cello is an acoustic instrument, but these cellos are plugged in – they basically invented the methods for electrifying a cello and using it in a metal format all BY THEMSELVES. There may exist people using this now, but back when they started out, they pioneered the whole method of having a cello sound like a distorted guitar themselves. Basically, apart from prodigious trained skill (holding a cello above their head while playing a solo at 200 bpm flawlessly and headbanging at the same time), they are also actually inventors of a new sound. They are one of the few bands that can claim to have done something completely unique with music. There are drums though, to back the whole thing up, by the way.

Now for the actual album at hand. It depends on what song we’re talking about whether the album as a whole is actually good. The band, in recent years, with some of the vocal collaborations, has had a tendency to gay it up to the extreme, inviting the most homo of singers to join them. Those songs always sound clearly different from the rest of the album and sometimes break up the continuity: often they are more commercial songs with a more alterna-rock direction. They mix this up with a lot of Metallica and Slayer-style riffs on the instrumental passages, and evocative calm celloing here and there. I like the band when they go all experimental on their cellos, as these compositions tend to be the stronger and not as cheesy. Some of the “hit single” songs work, though. Not on this album, however: the songs that are hit singles here are just plain bad and feature some of the most annoying singing you’ll hear this year. Skip them, apart from the collaboration with Gojira’s Joe Duplantier – that one is worth the pennies obviously. “Bring them to Light” may be the best thing on the album. God that track rules extremely hard. Bringing together two of the most crazy bands on the planet was obviously a good idea.

Instrumentally, the playing is obviously top notch, but I don’t feel some of the songs like I did on previous records. “At the Gates of Manala” is absolutely fantastic though, and the Dave Lombardo collaboration “2010” is amazing as well. This album probably needs some more spins to digest it, though. Apocalyptica’s album tend to be on the growing spectrum, as they are very, very different from what you are used to. But right now I can’t help but feel that this album, like the previous one, is a good album – just not as good as what came before. To me, the self-titled is still their peak with regards to their own compositions (the first two albums are almost all covers and “Cult” doesn’t feature actual drums), and this album is probably not going to unseat that. But it’s worthy of picking up nonetheless, even just for a listen to a band that is unorthodox as fuck. Whatever you think of this, it will be at least something different and that alone is a reason to check this out pronto.

Recommendation: Get better guest singers and compose less homo songs for them. Other than that, keep going and do what you boys do best.

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Sony Music
Website: www.apocalyptica.com
Band
Eicca Toppinen: cello
Perttu Kivilaakso: cello
Paavo Lotjonen: bass
Mikko Siren: drums
Joseph Duplantier: guest vocals on “Bring me to Light”
Dave Lombardo: guest drums on “2010”
Lacey Mosley: guest vocals on “Broken Pieces”
Gavin Rossdale: guest vocals on “End of Me”
Brent Smith: guest vocals on “Not Strong Enough”

Tracklist
01. At the Gates of Manala
02. End of Me
03. Not Strong Enough
04. 2010
05. Through Paris in a Sportscar
06. Beautiful
07. Broken Pieces
08. On the Rooftop with Quasimodo
09. Bring them to Light
10. Sacra
11. Rage of Poseidon
12. The Shadow of Venus

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