Helm's Deep

Somehow, despite being an utterly bonkers combination of late 80s Fates Warning a la No Exit/Perfect Symmetry, Psychotic Waltz's A Social Grace (which, as a 1990 contemporary, means they actually came up with this shit independently!) and technical jammy weirdness like Slauter Xstroyes' Winter Kill, Brothers Grimm's excellent sole full-length album Helms Deep continues to toil in anonymity. Okay, okay, it's not quite up to par with A Social Grace or Winter Kill, but one can hardly fault it for not living up to some of the greatest progressive metal albums ever recorded; it's still firmly within the uppermost echelon of progressive metal, with few candidates even existing within that older, more esoteric school of progressive metal I've mentioned in my Psychotic Waltz and Inferno reviews. Of course, Brothers Grimm do ultimately have their own sound, one that doesn't really fall into the thrash metal of Psychotic Waltz or the power metal of Slauter Xstroyes; it falls closer to the latter (I did call it 'USPM' in the title), and if you want a second descriptor, USPM is probably the best choice, but really just plain old 'progressive metal' or maybe 'technical progressive metal' is the most accurate descriptor that is truly accurate here. It's sort of a loose, jammy style that often has a dreamlike or mystical atmosphere to it, to which nothing really compares, that I've ever heard; the dreamy quality of Fates Warning's Awaken the Guardian is completely different, and the "loose, jammy, technical style" of modern prog like Dream Theater is also completely different; it's difficult to describe more specifically, so beyond that you'll just have to check out the album.

That's as far as a general description of the album, especially in comparison to other things; I can of course go into more specifics as far as the elements of the music itself. One thing that immediately stands out as differing from the other bands in this school is the active bass presence, often playing a completely different yet no less complex line from the guitar. Very few metal albums I've heard have this going for them (Cirith Ungol's King of the Dead comes to mind), so that's definitely cool to hear going on here. It's also even less about traditional songs and structures than most other progressive metal bands I've heard; Psychotic Waltz and Fates Warning, for example, both tend to stick more or less to a semi-traditional verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. Brothers Grimm do use choruses, but verses are nowhere to be found, with the rest of the song time often filled with sections so varied they're difficult to follow; the solos are often jazzy in nature, leading to that "loose" sound I described, although there are plenty of metal solos as well. Really, though, if "progressive" is taken to mean a style that eschews traditional song structures and ideas for more esoteric and/or experimental ideas, Brothers Grimm is about as progressive as they come. I wouldn't at all call them avant-garde - the music itself at any given time is never really so bizarre that you can't put it squarely into the 'progressive metal' category - but the changes are constant and varied, more so even than in Awaken the Guardian, which I've noted in my review for just that same thing.

Vocalist Bruce Arnold is strong - no Buddy Lackey or John Arch, but again, I couldn't fault him for that - tending to stay quite high into the upper register, in a similar way to Arch but tonally he sounds nothing like Arch. He has a slightly gritty quality to his voice, and it's definitely rougher in a nonliteral sense as well; it doesn't sound as though he's had classical training, or if he has, he's using a fairly off-kilter, sometimes almost grating tone intentionally. Now, I'm not saying this to fault him, for the most part - the super high, gritty and sort of dissonant (not at all harsh, but often in direct conflict with the guitar and/or bass lines) delivery works well for this bizarre, constantly transforming, labyrinthine sound. Occasionally it can become annoying, as though it's just too much, but that's kind of this album; not in the annoying sense, but in the "jesus, there's just way too much fucking going on here" sense, if you listen to it for too long. Note that it never sounds busy for the sake of being busy, everything is always important, related somehow to another melody, usually in some form of contrast, but it is very difficult to digest. There are clear neoclassical elements here - at times it sounds like you might be listening to Cauldron Born, perhaps, or a similar band - but that's never the only thing going on, and it's used in far more complex a method even than Cauldron Born or, say, Helstar's Nosferatu. To the casual listener there are probably several sections that sound like random noise (there's even a fairly long drum solo towards the end of "Night of the Jackal"), but there is nothing random about this album.

Really the musicianship here is just top-notch and practically unparalleled; it definitely demonstrates a higher level of mastery than A Social Grace or Awaken the Guardian in that respect, and while a band like Dream Theater may have comparable musicianship, the fact that Brothers Grimm actually write coherent songs and melodies that have a point other than useless guitar masturbation puts them high, high above Dream Theater. If I had to pick an album highlight, it would be the opener, "Status: Oligarchy" which starts with an ominous, mysterious riff which repeats throughout the song (it's maybe the most accessible and traditional of the songs, but by no means think that makes it at all accessible or traditional in general), with a long, very dreamy and sublime solo that has various stages and is probably my favorite passage of the album and an interesting, memorable chorus. However, crux and monster of a title track "Helm's Deep" is utterly insane and ambitious, clocking in at nearly 13 minutes and probably the most difficult to follow of any of the songs here; there's definitely quite a bit to hear there every time you listen to it, and there's a breathtaking acoustic solo near the end that gives the aforementioned passage in "Status: Oligarchy" a run for its money. Of course, there are no bad songs here, and "Night of the Jackyl" is the only one I wouldn't call "fucking amazing," it is merely "very good," which is why this album gets a 94/100 and not the 97-98 that would put it among aforementioned company like Winter Kill and Awaken the Guardian. Still, the album is just so masterful and complicated, I've heard it at least 9 or 10 times all the way through, but I still find new and interesting things in every track every time I listen to it; it would take a long, long time to every get and absorb everything going on here. If you're a fan of that older and more esoteric school of progressive metal I've been talking about - or, hell, if you're a fan of progressive metal of any kind or just a very serious metal listener who wants something challenging, you need this album, it brings the term "challenging music" to a level all its own.