Dan Swanö is a legendary Swedish vocalist, guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist and music producer. He is regarded as influential in the underground progressive metal, progressive rock and death metal communities. In addition to having an enormous resume as an engineer and producer, Swanö has fronted a huge number of bands. This Barking Chicken Production combines highlights from several of these including Edge Of Sanity, Nightingale, Moontower, Odyssey, Steel and Pan.Thy.Monium. Separately, each one of these bands sets the standard for its genre, combined they are the mark of genius.
Swanö - Bleeding Shadow
01 Ekkhoeece
02 The Masque
03 Blood-Colored
04 Shadowman
05 Sun Of The Night
06 Raincheck On My Demise
07 15:36
08 Stalingrad
09 Until Eternity Ends
10 Alone?
11 Amon-Ra
12 Patchworks
13 White Darkness
14 Twilight
15 Say Goodbye (To Love)
The Duo, Sean Reinert (drums, vocals, keys) and Paul Masvidal (lead vocals, guitars, keys), initially made a name for themselves in the Florida metal scene as Cynic. In the late 80s, Cynic released a series of highly regarded demos. As Cynic progressed from an underground thrash band to a progressive death metal legend, Reinert and Masvidal were recruited by Chuck Schuldiner to record and tour Death’s critically acclaimed ‘Human’ album. Following these obligations, Cynic released the groundbreaking ‘Focus’ in 1993. By this time, they had metamorphosized into a full-blown jazz-fusion death metal band with an emphasis on extreme technicality and progressive songwriting.
Despite their successes, Reinert and Masvidal were not to be confined by the boundaries of metal. As their music progressed, Cynic dissovled. They formed a short-lived band called Portal that combined ethereal female vocals with some of the spacier elements found on ‘Focus’.
After disappearing for the better part of a decade, Reinert and Masvidal turned up in Los Angeles. They had formed a new band called Aeon Spoke which has been described as progressive ethereal rock. In 2005 the track “Emmanuel” appeared in the film What The Bleep Do We Know!?. Another track “Damaged” appeared on the Warner Brothers television series Smallville, while the song “I've Seen Those Eyes” appeared in the movie Cry Wolf.
As Reinert and Masvidal were still musically active, there was nothing to prevent them from breathing new life into Cynic. To the delight of a hardcore following, Cynic returned in 2008 with the release of ‘Traced In Air’ and a tour in support of the album. The evolution in sound is exactly what you would expect in light of the direction they have taken over the years.
On the surface, each of the projects involving the Reinert Masvidal Duo are quite different. But if you dig deeper, you will find that there is a thread of similarity that runs throughout. This Barking Chicken Production combines tracks from the various projects that have manifested themselves through the collaboration of Reinert and Masvidal over the last 15 years.
Since hitting the scene, Katatonia’s sound has evolved from crushing doom/death metal to a more atmospheric, depressive rock.This Barking Chicken Production focuses exclusively on their more accessible recent output.For the uninitiated, I would say that today’s Katatonia sounds like a cross between The Cure and Tool.But there is much more to it than that.I would still call it metal, but they are certainly stretching the boundaries of the genre about as far as they can go without breaking.
This release is inspired by the double disc ‘The Black Sessions’ compilation.It combined tracks from the last few albums with B-sides and obscure material.Having all these great songs in one place was great, but the flow was disrupted by the arguably second rate material that was purposely left off the studio albums in the first place.Katatonia has released a string of incredible albums, so I knew that if you trimmed the fat you would have one hell of a listening experience.I was right.Take a Crash Course in Katatonia.You won’t be sorry.
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