Metalia

I’ve been gone for a while. Truthfully, I’ve wanted to write up some reviews on albums I’ve listened to over the past couple years, but I never truly found the motivation to do so. I might’ve reviewed In Flames’ Foregone, but I forget if I did or not. Same thing with The Vertigo Trigger by Cyhra. I want to get around to Days of the Lost, since I love that album, but due to both a lack of a feeling of necessity and my laptop’s keyboard being fucked, I just haven’t. I also want to revise my review in Amateras as my opinions on it have changed a lot, particularly because of my misunderstanding that it’s actually J-metal and not European-sounding, which has greatly worn down my love for it. However, these two albums gave me the drive to actually write more reviews, and I do not mean that with any positivity in my heart.

Metalia and Cyberia both start off on the wrong foot— A mangled, shotgun-blasted, profusely bleeding one at that. Quintessa represents everything wrong with Metalia: Far worse vocals from Sadew than I could’ve ever expected, maybe even worse than Saika (How did this happen?) which also has spoken-word segments be far more prevalent than on previous albums, bland guitarwork that’s barely there and has a mediocre tone, drumming that you can’t convince me isn’t programmed (I don’t care if he plays it in the video, plays it live, and played it on prior albums— I don’t believe he played them here), questionable and unnecessary female vocals, and bass that is nonexistent, which is the least of Blood Stain Child’s crimes. I will give them the credit they’re due though, Aki does a phenomenal job on keyboards. The aim of Metalia was to expand on the sound of 2045, whose synths were rather reminiscent of their debut’s symphonic metal sound, and I’d argue they come even closer to their debut here than they did on 2045. It’s the one thing that makes me genuinely happy in a sea of horrid performances. Please keep in mind that we not only waited three years since the last release, which was a single, so five years since the last album, but with absolutely zero news until a month or two prior. If I’m going to wait five years with no substantial material in between releases, they least I’d like is better material than this. And I know, it’s a double album, but I’ll spoil my Cyberia review right now by saying that they should’ve just gone all in on that album and maybe given it a couple of the symphonic songs here.

Once you get to Omniverse, another unfortunate truth is striking: The mixing is horrendous at points. It isn’t always like this, but Sadew’s vocals aren’t full in the mix like they used to be, and sometimes there’ll be volume jumps from one guitar part to the next, making it clear that those guitar tracks were recorded separately. The weird part is that this isn’t always the case, with Sadew’s vocals in the second verse sounding perfectly fine and honestly like how they did on previous efforts where he was great. It feels like they kept each first take like how Slaughter of the Soul did, but I don’t find that that or its ethos are the case here. Everything lines up to Metalia being incredibly amateurish, which isn’t something I would expect from a band who’s eight albums in, at least if we’re counting The Legend. The song also goes all over the place in terms of composition as well, going from a nice, but beginner-sounding guitar lead reminiscent of Jesper Stromblad’s melodies in the chorus to a dub-laden breakdown halfway through the song— Which I’m actually not too opposed to normally, but it just sounds obnoxious and simple here. The guitar solo and keyboard solo are both actually great, bringing the feel of Idolator in the way of Epsilon, which is how I’d describe the whole song.

While I won’t do a track by track review, I’ll talk about both some key errors in songs and the songs I either love or especially hate from here on out.

Morning Star isn’t horrible, and in fact, I actually believe that Yasu played the drums here. They genuinely sound natural, which is great, except they’re at the far back of the mix just barely in front of the bass. I’ll also point out that around the 2:15 mark, it has a gorgeous bridge reminiscent of Zombie Inc.’s, which is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. The guitar solo that follows it is also pretty good, but Ryu has a tendency to do the same sort of playing for each of these. I can’t put it into words, but you’ll know it when you hear a bunch of his solos back to back. I actually quite like ESTRELLA, but that’s simply because it’s every Mozaiq song smashed together. Nothing else to say here.

I want to compare Night Sky to something like Another Dimension from Mozaiq, but I think the more crucial point is that this belongs in Cyberia far more than it does Metalia. It’s not symphonic-sounding, it’s the sort of EDM party music that’s on the other album. I’m fully under the belief that this song was switched over because Ryu felt that both albums needed to exist and have the same number of tracks.

DIGITAL FOREST isn’t that good in execution, but it represents my more positive feelings on Metalia. It’s actually an acoustic ballad that’s a little more than just basic strumming, but it still does have that. The guitars and sort of dramatic movie synths sound quite nice, and the song is overall adventurous and experimental in a way that I can appreciate. I’ve waited until now to bring this up, but most people who commented on both the Quintessa and Unreal World videos were incredibly happy with them not being melodic death metal, and while melodeath is my favorite subgenre, I don’t feel that Blood Stain Child has to put themselves in a box like that. They never did, and the melodeath they previously did was always their own flavor that no one else I’ve heard has ever really captured. It’s why they’re one of my favorite bands— They’re practically the Japanese In Flames, who is my favorite band. What I hate possibly more than the execution of Metalia is its lack of ambition and experimentation, and it feels like an album that Ryu didn’t even want to do, instead being scared of what Cyberia’s reception could’ve been like on its own, especially after a long wait. Metalia, for the most part, is rather lackluster, primarily only shining through its synths, and that’s incredibly disappointing. DIGITAL FOREST, for all of its flaws, is the antithesis of Metalia, doing something the band’s only done once— Live, with an acoustic performance of Embrace Me from Idolator, which is far better than this. That being said, with how disappointed I’ve been in this album, I can’t bring myself to criticize the one bit of experimentation they actually attempted.

Back To The Planet is a triumphant conclusion to Metalia, and I’d argue it’s the only time that the entire band fires in all cylinders. Everything here is actually great, and it’s the only song where the bass is audible, having a slightly thick tone, but generally following the rhythm guitar’s playing. Is it perfect? No, the production is still slightly below what it’s been on previous albums, but I can safely say that I love this song if that’s my biggest complaint. It’s the only song I will be buying off of Metalia, and it’s the only one I would recommend. Is it the Blood Stain Child of old? No. However, it truly does finally feel like the Blood Stain Child of the current day, and I’m at least happy that the album closed off on the best note it could.

I find it funny that after nearly two decades, history is repeating itself in a slightly changed course. Back in 2007 (I think), Ryu said in an interview that he listened to more electronic music than he did metal and that that’s what he wanted to make. I feel that completely here, as both compositionally and aesthetically, Metalia doesn’t tap into metal too much. Cyberia, at least in my opinion, is a far more genuine album, and I do like it more than Metalia. Metalia, however, reminds me of the aforementioned album of 2007: Mozaiq, which has grown on me a ton in the past couple years. I think that album did everything Metalia aimed to do, save for the symphonic synths, far better than Metalia ever did, and there were so many times while listening through this where I found segments that were just Mozaiq. While I don’t think this is a bad thing on its own, the low quality of Metalia just made me want to listen to Mozaiq, a much better album. But hey, at least Cyberia’s here to fulfill Ryu’s dream of making an EDM album. I’ll be sure to get to that soon.

Songs to Recommend: Back To The Planet
Songs to Avoid: Quintessa