Karthago - Máté Péter in Rock! (2022)

Country: Hungary
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 17 Jun 2022
Sites: Facebook | Official Website | Twitter | Wikipedia

Four years of deep diving into international rock and metal at Apocalypse Later Music has brought me in touch not only with the new stuff that's coming out everywhere but also with old stuff that's either still going strong or being brought back into the light. If I'm translating websites correctly, I think this album counts as two cases in point: both the hard rock band Karthago, who recorded for a few years in the early eighties and the music of a Hungarian pop singer called Máté Péter, a cult figure in his native country for a couple of decades from the mid-sixties to his death in 1984 at only thirty-seven years old.

Now, Karthago aren't entirely new to me but I've only heard one of their songs, courtesy of Milan Hubláček from the then Czechoslovakia who kindly sent Tommy Vance a copy of their first album in 1982, from which he played Do Not Stop on the Friday Rock Show. I didn't hear it until recently on a shared recording, as I didn't find that show until 1984, but I enjoyed it and other Euro-rockers that Tommy hauled out for that particular episode. It looks like they released five studio albums in the early eighties before splitting up in 1985, but they got back together in 1990 and eventually found their way back into the studio for ValóságRock in 2004. This is their second studio album since then.

However, if I'm still understanding correctly, none of this one is original material. Everything here is a Máté Péter song, reinterpreted within a rock framework. This works surprisingly well for me, even not knowing nothing at all about Máté and not a heck of a lot more about Karthago. At least I have Discogs to hand, so I can see that there are four tracks here from Máté's 1976 debut album, Éjszakák és nappalok, nothing at all from its follow-up, Magány... és együttlét—which does seem telling—but a trio of songs from each of Máté's two other albums, Szívhangok and Keretek között, the latter of which was released in 1982 at a time when Karthago were active. The rest, I presume, were originally singles.

What matters is that this material rocks, whether that was inherent in the originals or whether it was infused during the translation between genres. Zene nélkül, which opens up the album, is like Deep Purple taking on a Scorpions power ballad, and Elmegyek seems like that too. Egy darabot a szívemböl is a hard rocker out of the gate and stays that way, while Minden szónál többet ér ramps up nicely. To keep the variety in play, Otthonom a nagyvilág, which is old school bluesy rock 'n' roll.

Other tracks feel more like the ballads I'm assuming they were to begin with, even rocked up with a strong guitar like Most élsz or a harmonica like Szülöi ház. Some end up with a Nazareth feel, an epitome perhaps being Azért vannak a jóbarátok, but they're all powerful, even when they're not delivered with as much emphasis. Part of that is that Takáts Tamás's lead vocal, which didn't grab me on the opener, is particularly strong on these power ballads. It's interesting how he went from my least favourite aspect of the band to my favourite literally from one song to another.

It's fair to say here that by power ballads, I don't necessarily mean Still Loving You; many of these are closer to Bridge Over Troubled Water, especially Ott állsz az út végén, which features a highly recognisable four note section on the piano, even if it's also little bit country, as if it's translated a second time. It's not a million miles from a Johnny Hallyday cover of a Merle Haggard cover of the Simon and Garfunkel song.

I should mention here that the entire band is clearly very capable, even though I don't know if any of them have been with Karthago for their entire run or just the last five minutes. The guitars are by Szigeti Ferenc and Gidófalvy Attila, the latter of whom also provides the excellent keyboards, a background instrument here for sure but one that manifests in different ways throughout. There are delicate piano parts over here, texture swells over there, Jon Lord here and there and even a bit of Dire Straits on Szülöi ház. There's a neat bass section on Egy darabot a szívemböl too.

So Kathargo may not have stayed the course like Ossian, but they've hung in there and remained relevant over four decades. On an important Hungarian national holiday last year, the members were given the Máté Péter Award, which is presumably why they decided to record this album. I'm very happy that they did, because it was a discovery for me.

And that may be another reason why the most emotional song is the closer, Emlékezz rám, which I noticed was also the closer on Keretek között, Máté Péter's final album before his death. It really doesn't need three reasons to be there, the third being that it inherently sounds like a memorial, even if it never was until now. And, hey, it did its job, as did this album.

Ghost Toast - Shade without Color (2022)

Country: Hungary
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 3 Mar 2022
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website | Twitter | YouTube

Ghost Toast were new to me when I found their fourth album a couple of years ago and that made my highly recommended list for 2020. Here's the fifth and it's a longer and heavier album, though most of it was written at the same time. In fact, the bass is turned up so high here that it distorts on me at points, as if my speakers just aren't up to the job. As that continued, even after I fiddled with my graphic equaliser to minimise the effect, I realised that it was something the band had to be aiming at. It's an odd choice to my way of thinking, but it's the one they made.

Beyond being longer and heavier, as epitomised on the opener, Get Rid Of, which blisters out of the gate and has little plan to calm down, it's also a more varied album. Sure, Ghost Toast still play in a sort of electronically tinged instrumental prog rock/metal style, with samples taking the place of vocals, but they also add a female vocalist here who I haven't been able to identify. She's there on Leaders, playing with middle eastern melodies, and she's there on Reaper Man, albeit glitched for effect. She may be sampled on those two, but she seems to be singing along with the band on both the closer, Rejtekböl, and my favourite track, Let Me Be No Nearer, on which she's more Celtic. It's very possible that there's more than one female voice here, but there's a consistent tone.

As that might suggest, not everything here is frantic, though Get Rid Of never has any intention of letting up, almost black metal without the shrieks, and Deliberate Disguises shows some excellent buzzsaw guitars. Leaders crunches as well, highlighting how easily Ghost Toast slip over from prog rock to prog metal. But there's peace even in Get Rid Of, with late strings and the first sample the album has to offer, from my namesake, HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The band definitely look forward rather than backward, but they don't see inevitable heavying up of everything. They see a richer palette for their dynamic play, which is probably why they resonate so well with me.

That's definitely on show in the first epic here, Chasing Time, which almost sounds like bagpipes as it kicks off, but they're not: they're keyboards and guitars playing a sort of modulated drone. From this point, delicate electronics and tender strings highlight that it's going to seriously build, which it does, magnificently so. Let Me Be No Nearer uses those strings even more effectively, not least through all the middle eastern play; Acceptance is sassier, looser and jazzier; and Rejtekböl finds a neat pastoral groove. There's a lot here to explore.

Once again, the samples are a highlight because they're used sparingly but effectively, so always stand out for attention, the music tending to lull to allow that. Leaders uses an old Frank Herbert NBC interview that feels utterly contemporary, as does the reading of T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men on Whimper, even though that's even older, dating back to 1925. Jim Carrey's here, not from a film but from a commencement address he gave to a graduating class at the Maharishi International University. However, the most hard to ignore is the creepy conversation on Deliberate Disguises, sampled from the movie adaptation of The Neverending Story.

I liked Shape without Form enough to give it an 8/10 and I like this even more. It continues in much the same vein, but it seems to be more mature and more ambitious with its musical palette. They were excellent anyway, but if they're improving at this rate, they're going to be unstoppable soon. I now have their earlier work at hand and look forward to album number six.

Ossian - A Teljesség (2021)

Country: Hungary
Style: Heavy/Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 7 May 2021
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Official Website

I stumbled onto Ossian last year, through their Csak a jót album, which I reviewed here at Apocalypse Later, but I'm a little late to the table, given that it was their 25th since 1988. That's a productive rate and it's a rare year that doesn't see a new Ossian album. Well, here's number 26, exactly on schedule and it's another good one. I really need to get round to diving into their back catalogue.

Metal Archives lists them as a heavy/power metal band and that's fair enough, because they're both of those things, but they're hard rock more than they're any sort of metal, especially when compared to most bands playing some form of heavy or power metal in Europe nowadays. Play any song from A Teljesség next to something by Primal Fear or Rage or Iron Savior and it will appear to be slower, less heavy and more traditional in comparison and that would still count even with heavier songs such as Kelj fel és láss (Get Up and See), A türelem hatalom (Patience is Power) and A hiányzó láncszem (The Missing Link).

And that's fine. There's plenty of room in the genre for different approaches and I like this particular sound. Even if it's slower, less heavy and more traditional than any of the heavy or power metal bands I've reviewed, it's still rooted in power and strength, through tone, patience and production. Richárd Rubcsics may not be a guitar shredder and nobody ever shows off in hyperspeed but this is strong and confident and very comfortable in itself. It's appropriate that the title transates from the Hungarian to The Completeness.

Those heavier songs I mentioned above are clearly metal and most of what's here is built on solid riffs and a very clean guitar sound. There's also an instrumental piece, Engedd el (Let Go), which is a tasty slice of metal too, especially when it speeds up towards the end, the only moment on this album when Ossian truly let loose and become reminiscent of Iron Maiden. However, that gives way to a far softer moment, as Az, aki voltam (The One I Was) kicks off like a radio friendly soft rock song. It ramps up for the choruses, but it's still a much softer piece.

And there's a lot of that here. Lassan ébredö (Waking Up Slowly) is an outright piano ballad and quite a few songs here, perhaps most notably Azon a napon (That Day) plays out in a very intimate way. It's initially just acoustic guitars and voice and, while it does heavy up with some power chords halfway in, until that point it feels like the band are sitting in my cramped office performing to an audience that consists entirely of me and that's a good feeling. Nem elég az ég (The Sky is Not Enough) starts out in the same way.

Most of these songs are in the second half of the album, where there's a lot going on, whether at the heavier or softer ends of the band's sound, but my favourite song here is easily the opener, which is a singalong special, Kell egy szikra (Need a Spark). As always, the rhythm section is reliable, so Rubcsics can conjure up another simple but strong riff in front of them and coax some elegant atmosphere out of his guitar too. He doesn't play a lot of notes but he plays the right ones and they're exquisite on this song.

I don't know what sole founder member Endre Paksi is singing, because just like all of these songs, he delivers the lyrics entirely in Hungarian, but I wanted to sing along with him anyway. The only flaw I'm seeing is that the core hook on this song is so strong that I wanted it to keep on going, but it fades out to give way for the next too quickly. Sure, it's the longest song on the album, but it's still only 4:35. It's surely no hardship to let it breathe past the five minute mark and milk that hook for all it's worth.

Based on the two Ossian albums I've heard now, they're a thoroughly reliable band. Some songs are better than others, of course, but they're all decent and the best are excellent. Like many bands that I review at Apocalypse Later I'd love to see them live in their home environment, but with Ossian, I'd try to watch the audience as much as enjoy the band. I have a feeling that there are a lot of people in Hungary who have grown up with Ossian and probably see them like a national institution.

Djabe - The Magic Stag (2020)

Country: Hungary
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 25 Sep 2020
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Prog Archives | Twitter | Wikipedia | YouTube

I hadn't heard of Djabe until now, but they've built quite an international audience for a difficult to categorise Hungarian band through their collaborations with Steve Hackett, the guitarist of Genesis (and much more) fame. They've been around since 1995, but it seems that he began working with them in 2002 when their founder, Attila Égerházi, took on the distribution of Hackett's albums in Hungary. Since then, they've recorded and performed together frequently, Hackett describing them as "the best band I have ever played with." He co-wrote some of this album and plays on seven of its eleven songs, plus the bonus track on the vinyl edition.

Djabe means "freedom", not in Hungarian but in an African language family called Akan, which goes a long way to highlight how this band are rooted in world music. The first sounds you'll hear, during an instrumental intro called Beginning of Legends, are drums, flutes, piano and a Hungarian lute called a cobza. It's exotic and evocative and it sets a fantastic scene. So, they play folk music, or for those of us not in Hungary, world music.

The title track plays in that territory too, but it's clearly prog rock except when it's jazz. Djabe play an enticing prog/jazz fusion, though it's hardly aggressive. Their jazz style is smooth but never less than interesting because of the different sounds it trawls in. The Magic Stag features complex drums and a startling bass, along with a laid back vocal from drummer Péter Kaszás, who also sings on Down by the Lakeside. That one's less progressive and less jazzy, but it's still both with that smooth voice lending a real mainstream touch. Take the Alan Parsons Project and yacht rock them up.

In between those two vocal pieces, Power of Wings is even more immersed in jazz; it's an instrumental that starts with sitar and saxophone, which might seem like an odd mix, and gradually passes themes on to more traditional instruments, like Attila Égerházi's guitar. Far Away is jazzy too, reminding of a Yes instrumental, complete with prominent bass runs, but moved back towards smooth territory with a prominent trumpet. Both of these pieces move themes around the instruments, swapping solos and improvisations, then passing the torch on again. I dig the instrumental fusion much more than those songs with voice, not entirely because of the outstanding basswork of Tamá Barabás.

So, Djabe are a world/folk/prog/jazz group, who write complex songs, most but not all instrumentals, even when telling a story. They're all reasonably but not excessively long. Down by the Lakeside is one of the short songs here, at a blink over five minutes. Power of Wings sits at the short end of the range that Djabe are clearly comfortable with, just shy over seven minutes. Of the ten songs on offer, half of them fit within a minute above that baseline. Only the closer, Uncertain Time, goes further, nudging a little past nine minutes. Seven is clearly the sweet spot for improvisational music to breathe.

Thus far, Hackett has only played on the title track, which he also co-wrote with his wife Jo, but that's misleading because he plays guitar on Unseen Sense, the fifth full track, and contributes to every one of the pieces still to come. I can see why he enjoys playing with Djabe, because he fits in here without remotely standing out, as you might expect an aging British prog rocker to do when teaming up with a Hungarian jazz band. It all feels completely natural, as if his guitar is an established component in a time-honoured Djabe sound.

I don't know if the proggier pieces are because of his influence or because that's always been part of a Djabe sound that dates back a quarter of a century. There's prog in most of these pieces, even if jazz is a little more overt. Then again, this is arguably less jazzy than the current Focus album and how does that usually get categorised? Frankly, I was looking for more prog than I got, and more world too, but the jazz is often proggy, even if Áron Koós-Hutás's trumpet, which is a delightful addition to sweeter pieces like Two Little Snowflakes, always brings it back to the jazz side of things.

The most world we get is Rising Horizon, which is built on keyboards and vocals by Égerházi's father, who recorded them at a folklore festival in Transsylvania in the seventies. It's very world music, albeit backed by very western keyboard textures, for a few minutes before it reverts to the laid back jazz of the previous few pieces. The most prog we get is Uncertain Time, that nine minute closer, anchored by Hackett's acoustic guitar but with that trumpet soaring above. And, in many ways, this starts well and just keeps getting better. I'm certainly going to listen to this a lot more.

Ossian - Csak a jót (2020)

Country: Hungary
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 17 Apr 2020
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Official Website

One of the greatest joys I've had out of these music reviews is discovering a bunch of bands who have been around for decades, given that I'd never even heard of them before. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they've tended to be bands who only sing in their native language and whose success has been confined to an area in or around their native country, though that's not a given as there's a Lucifer's Friend or a Dice for every Ningen-Isu or Metalium.

Ossian are another of these, given that they're entirely new to me but they were formed in Hungary as far back as 1986 after vocalist Endre Paksi left a band called Pokolgép and put a new one of his own together. This is the 25th studio album for Ossian and, as Pokolgép have gone on to release fourteen of their own, there's clearly quite the scene in Budapest and it's been there for a long while.

While the opening title track is reasonably heavy and heavy moments continue throughout the album, this is more hard rock than heavy metal. The songs are all built out of traditional elements: steady and reliable beats, simple but effective riffs and plenty of vocal hooks. Ossian's speciality seems to be a surprising amount of singalong choruses. They ought to get a lot of response and involvement from the audience in the larger venues they play.

Some might accuse them of being unimaginative because there's clearly a sort of template in play here. The dozen tracks here all progress in similar ways and last for about the same amount of time. Almost all of them run for three minutes with a couple of verses, a few choruses and maybe a couple of guitar solos. I can't deny that there's a sameness to the structure of these songs and that, with a consistent quality too, makes it tough to call any of them out as highlights. If you like one of these songs, you'll like them all.

However, I wasn't ever bored listening to this album, even a few times in a row. Those hooks are all impressive ones that make me want to sing along but for my complete lack of knowledge of the Hungarian language. Ossian vary the formula here and there and throw in little touches like the acoustic guitar outro to Akiröl álmodtál that keep things varied enough.

And I'd also call out some highlights. Köszöntés is a peach of a song, with a top notch riff and an excellent chorus. This is the most obvious single of many, appropriate enough too as it translates to Greeting. That arrives nine tracks in and I like the tenth too, at the point where most albums would be tailing off. That one's Ami nyomot hagy, or Which Leaves a Mark. Perhaps the most telling to me point is the fact that I even enjoy the ballads; Követem vakon (I Follow Blindly) keeps on growing on me.

So, maybe it's an album with a dozen similar tracks that blur together even after a few listens. Maybe it's an album with a dozen worthy tracks, each of which could be viably released as a single. In reality, it's kinda both and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just wish I'd heard any of those prior 24 albums to be able to put this one into perspective, but for now I'll just say that I enjoyed it a lot.

Ghost Toast - Shape without Form (2020)

Country: Hungary
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 3 Mar 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website | Twitter | YouTube

Now, here's an interesting album! Ghost Toast, a name of which I thoroughly approve, play instrumental prog rock out of Debrecen in Hungary and they're on their fourth album here. With no vocalist, that role occasionally filled by samples from movies, the line-up is guitar, bass and drums with a fourth musician on keyboards and cello. You could call it art rock, post-rock and experimental rock without being wrong and sometimes switch the rock out for metal because they have some serious power behind them.

Certainly, the opener powers up a minute and a half in from a soft piano to driving guitar. That a keyboard swell floats over the top of it for a while doesn't dissipate the way that guitar gallops and stabs. However, the return of the piano adds a melancholy contrast that keeps the guitar from becoming too vicious. It's called Frankenstein's and it's not as iconic as the Edgar Winter instrumental of almost the same name but it's still a solid opener.

The band's experimental edge is obvious in the way that László Papp sets up Eclipse with unusual drumming. It gets more interesting a minute and a half in when those drums play with the bass in what almost sounds like electronic music but isn't, except for a helping hand from the keyboardist. I feel that the riffs in the heavier sections, as solid as they are, almost function as interludes between more the experimental sections rather than the other way around.

Y13 is where the samples kick in, this time from Assignment: Outer Space, a 1960 sci-fi flick by the ever-prolific Antonio Margheriti, and the music is suitably cinematic. It's been a long while since I've seen the movie so I'm unaware of whether the band play with any of the themes from the soundtrack but they do acknowledge that movie scores are an influence for them. That's no surprise because, like all the best post-rock, they conjure up visuals.

Beyond movie scores and "heavy, trippy music", they're clearly well read in the diversity of music because Hunt of Life is a cover of an Icelandic folk song, even though it's drenched in electronica and even finds a reggae-like groove at one point. There are vocals here, but they're a sample too, from an a capella version of the song on YouTube by Kelly Jenny. While that makes it sound like they just added music behind her, there's really a heck of a lot more going on here than that, to the degree that she's hardly in it and it's mostly an instrumental.

The other song with samples is the epic closer, W.A.N.T., which stands for We Are Not Them. The piece opens with Big Brother from 1984 introducing us to hope through the "land of peace and of plenty in Oceania", but it isn't alone: it's spliced with Kurtz in Apocalypse Now reciting parts of Eliot's The Hollow Men, the poem that also gives the album its title. I thoroughly appreciate the imagination that went into combining two samples this way as it's not common. However, the imagination that went into a composition this advanced is even more appreciated.

Before W.A.N.T. are a couple of tracks that don't do anything special and so could be easily skipped over by someone only looking for special things, but they're excellent tracks on their own, even without samples or other source material to boost their presence. In fact, they're a couple of my favourite pieces here. Follow kicks off as delicately as anything on this album but it heavies up as it goes and the contrasts are neat. Compositions with dynamics always interest me and this one's done right. Before Anything Happens may be even better, with some catchy lines and more neat contrasts.

Ghost Toast have apparently been doing this for a while. Formed as a trio in 2008 with János Pusker joining a year later on keyboards and cello, they say they didn't have much musically in common but exploring the focal points is how they've come up with such interesting music. The line-up hasn't changed since and this is their fourth album. I'd very much like to go back to discover those other three.

Omen - Halálfogytiglan (2019)

Country: Hungary
Style: Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 12 Jul 2019
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Official Website | YouTube

Omen's The Curse was one of those albums that was everywhere in the eighties but my first surprise here was that this Omen isn't that Omen. Maybe the title of this album should have given me a hint but I'd forgotten that the other Omen were from Los Angeles. This particular Omen, who also play power metal, are from Budapest. They've been around since 1990 and they've been busy too, as I'm seeing eleven studio albums to their name, plus a live and a best of.

I dug this immediately, though I was a little worried at how Most kezdödik, appropriately the opening track given that the title apparently translates to It's Starting Now, was reminiscent of Symphony of Destruction. It's not unfair to think of Megadeth here, as Omen are certainly the heaviest power metal band I've heard in a long time. They're always upbeat but never lose their crushing heaviness even when they speed up, which they don't do as often as I might have expected, given that they're often tagged with speed and thrash too.

They're at their best, I think, when they're chugging along because they're so damn tight and the production does a fantastic job of highlighting that. It may be partly because the longest standing members include Zoltán Nagyfi, the band's patient but powerful drummer. He's been with Omen since 1990 and so has guitarist László Nagyfi, who I presume is related. I was expecting a long standing bassist, but József Mezöfi didn't join until 2017.

If the band is rock steady in the rhythm department, rumbling along like a neverending earthquake, they're also elevated by the vocals of Péter Molnár, which are tough but clean. He resists any urge to descend into growls but he has a powerful guttural voice nonetheless. He's the new fish, having become the band's fifth vocalist only this year, but I'd have guessed that he had years with the band. I'd be surprised if those other four singers matched the band's style so well; three of them had multiple albums to do so and two had a full decade. I'll have to listen backwards to see.

Oddly, and unlike that other Omen, this band don't really sound like anyone that I can conjure up in comparison. I do hear elements of other bands: the patient power of a Metal Church, the melodic chugging of a Megadeth and the riffs and solos of an Accept, but the complete songs rarely sound like any of those bands. The closest is the title track, which is very reminiscent of Metal Church's style. It's done very well too, but I guess they have enough years and albums behind them to be able to sound like themselves.

Like the Black Pistol album I reviewed this morning, this is very consistent stuff and choosing favourite tracks really comes down to favourite riffs as much as anything. I'd call out Lehunyt szemmel, or With Eyes Closed, as one highlight, except that it gets smoked by the next song, Egy jobb pokol, or A Better Hell, with an effortless riff worthy of Accept and a grungy chorus. I like its solo too, though it ends too quickly; the twin guitars are courtesy of László Nagyfi and Matt Nagy. They deserve more attention.

And so do Omen. I've listened through this album a few times and it's still as heavy as ever, even when finding memorable melodies for voice and guitar like Az lesz, ami volt, or It Will Be What It Was. I have no understanding of Hungarian but I was trying to sing along with this one on my first time. Trying and failing, of course, but it really made me want to try and that's what counts!

I think I need to come back to this in a week or two and see if it holds up. I may need to up my rating.

Borders of Byzantium - Odyssey (2019)

Country: Hungary
Style: Post-Hardcore
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 8 Mar 2019
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

I was in an interesting discussion last weekend. My eldest son, who's a big fan of Alice Cooper, mentioned that his wife listens to screamo. She looked at him like he'd just arrived from a distant planet; she doesn't listen to screamo. she said, utterly puzzled that he'd even suggest such a thing. And, given that the only album of hers I've heard is by the Pretty Reckless, who are variously described as alternative rock, blues and post-grunge, I might be confused too. I'm still unsure as to what she thinks she listens to but the lesson is that genre labels can be problematic.

Case in point: Borders of Byzantium, who hail from Budapest in Hungary and tend to be described as post-hardcore. Now, apparently I've been failing to realise what post-hardcore is. I'd figured that if post-rock was all about creating soundscapes with traditional rock instruments, then post-hardcore must be about creating soundscapes using aggressive music and shouty vocals, which didn't sound appetizing to me at all.

Fortunately, that's not what it is and I'm very happy for this wake up call because I kind of like this. Now I need to ask my daughter-in-law if this is what she really listens to and, if it is, whether I can borrow her collection.

To me, the only evidence of hardcore here is in the shouty vocals of Bence Joó, of which I'm not particularly fond even though he does it well. That's just me; I've never been a fan of that style. The four musicians who play behind him and Marcell Oláh, who handles the clean vocals, don't sound like a hardcore band to me in the slightest. If I'd been asked to describe them blind, I'd have gone with heavy alternative rock or light progressive metal.

Wikipedia tells me that post-hardcore is a punk rock genre that "maintains the aggression and intensity of hardcore" but "emphasizes a greater degree of creative expression". There's certainly creative expression here, with the musical palette explored ranging all the way from Depeche Mode to Dream Theater, with a lot more of the latter than the former.

Initially, they're very progressive, with Alive led by the drums of Kristóf Tóth and the neat interplay between the two vocalists. There's interesting guitarwork in there too, behind them, though using a lot less notes than a prog metal band would use. The Same Old Game moves from soft keyboards to a bouncy riff and bouncier pulsing electronica, complete with hand claps. It's new wave with a crunch. Fortified adds a chanting vocal that hints at rap before launching an catchy chorus.

That's three different approaches in three songs and the rest of the album pretty much combines those in different ways. The only songs to really take a different approach are Like Flies and the album's closer, Drawn Circles, which are softer by a degree and generally driven by textured keyboards but for the moments when they decide to get epic. They're like synth pop songs that dream of power.

Like Flies is surely my least favourite song on the album and it's telling that it's followed by Two Sides, probably the heaviest track on offer, that would be metalcore with a different sound mix and with less Oláh and a lot more Joó. This band does like to keep it fresh. They've said that the band name was inspired by the diversity of the Byzantine Empire, which they like to emulate in what they call a "genre-bending musical style".

I surprised myself by enjoying this rather a lot. Not all these tracks are as catchy as they think they are and some of them sound rather similar to others, even as there's an agreeably diversity within them. They obviously put a lot of effort into creating contrasts too and I liked that. There's a lot of hard vs. soft, metal vs. rock and clean vs. shouty and that elevates the album considerably.

Clearly I need to listen to more post-hardcore to get an idea of what it's all about. Borders of Byzantium are a promising start. Maybe they're the beginning of another odyssey for me.

Buso von Kobra - Chinese Tales from Outer Space Vol. 1 (2018)

Country: Hungary
Style: Stoner Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 5 Nov 2018
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Reverb Nation | SoundCloud

This is an interesting, if short, album that this intriguingly named Hungarian stoner band just released on Bandcamp with truly glorious cover art. It's good stuff but I'm trying to figure out what audience they're aiming for.

For instance, the opener, My Dear is a Whore, is heavy but still commercial. It ought to be a gimme for alternative radio play, except that the lyrics wouldn't allow that without heavy use of beeps during the chorus.

Chinese Tales doesn't let up either, even when it slows down a little, and whoever that is on guitar knocks out some tasty riffs on tracks like Backbones, while the various vocalists change up their styles on a regular basis. If I'm counting right, there are three tracks with Attila Voros singing, three with Gergely Kovacs, three with Jozzy and one with Jappan & Barnsz. Given that there are only seven tracks, they have to team up and that adds to their interesting sound.

In fact, in many ways, Backbones is about three different songs in one. It kicks off like an evil Zeppelin, leaps into Rage Against the Machine territory and end in a quietening groove. It's a song that catches you immediately but wants you to come back to dig deeper and I love that sort of thing.

The Wait does something similar. Out of the gate, it's alt country with cheeky cymbals. Then the chunky riffs hit and the vocals intensify, only to relax back down again like Nick Cave at points. Before long, soulful backing vocals join in to make sure we know it's commercially viable. And yet none of this feels out of place.

The psychedelic angle isn't that obvious early on but it kicks in hard towards the end of Ghost Train and especially at the beginning of Ivory Lies.

If this is what Budapest sounds like nowadays, I might have moved out of England in the wrong direction. This sounds great and 2,000 Hungarian forints is not as crazy as it sounds. That's about $7, making this about a buck a track, worth it given that there isn't a bad one on the album.

It aches to be played live though and if Buso von Kobra can recreate this in a club environment, they're going to truly blister. Sadly, I'm about six thousand miles away from being able to check that out. Someone get these guys onto the radio so they can start touring somewhere a little closer to me than Budapest!