Eventuality

Artist: Alarum
Label: Willowtip Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD

UPC: 790168515927
EAN: 0790168515927
ASIN: B0006A9GHM

Release Date: 2004-11-16

Related Categories:

Australia & New Zealand

| International | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Death Metal

| Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

General

| Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Progressive Metal

| Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

Thrash & Speed Metal

| Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Listmania:

2004-2006 Tech-Metal
Technicality At Its Greatest
My Favourite Death Metal
Willowtip Records = t3h 0wn4g3
Technical Death Metal Masterpieces
technical metal--icons and trailblazers
Top 10 prog metal records
If I must go alone on a lost island, I must own these...PT.4
Great Australian Metal Albums
The Top 100 (Part III)

Tracks:

Velocity
Sustained Connection
Lost Pleiad
Receiver
Remote Viewing
Inertial Grind
Cygnus X-1
Throughout the Moment
Woven Imbalance
Boundless Intent, Pt. 1
Boundless Intent, Pt. 2
Subject to Change
Event Duality
Audio Synthesis
Reconditioned

Similar Items:

The Sense Apparatus
Sublimation
Spatial/Design
Penumbra Diffuse
Ideas of Reference

Customer Reviews:

Just want to clear something up.......2007-02-20

This band is amazing. One of the best I have heard in the Tech Metal genre b/c they actually have a sense of melody. Just one thing tho...and I'm sure this will catch flak. The whole thing about these Tech Metal bands using Jazz. Well...I guess they incorporate ELEMENTS of Jazz. I used to be like many others and think that just because something was played cleanly with some out of the ordinary chord voicings that it was jazz. But one day I started listening to Jazz full time and discovered that it had nothing at all to do with my preconceived notions of what it sounded like. So to think that you will put in this cd and it will feature a Bebop combo jamming to Yardbird Suite in the middle of a death metal breakdown...no. Not even close.

Good, but missing something..........2006-12-21

Comparisons to Atheist and Cynic are inevitable, though I personally don't believe they're entirely deserved.

Both Cynic and Atheist had something that Alarum does not - mood and atmosphere. You could almost feel something mystical and transcendent going on in the backdrop on "Focus".. you could feel the spastic aggression on "Unquestionable Presence". On "Eventuality", all you can hear is perfectly executed technical almost-metal with ambient acoustic interludes that pop up every now and then but don't serve any particularly meaningful purpose.

The playing is excellent on all accounts - the guitars are all over the place, from thrashy riffing and wild soloing to jazzy chord progressions and tranquil acoustic pieces; the bass playing is top notch and very audible, which was a huge relief; the drumming is nuts, as you would come to expect in the technical metal world.

Then come the vocals, which are my first point of question. Sometimes the guy sings in an awkward clean voice over some acceptably heavy stuff, and then out of the blue he'll start screaming and raging over something that might have trouble passing as metal in the first place.. at least to some people. It doesn't make much sense.

Then there's the production. It's clean.. so clean.. and so not conducive to a genre such as this. I'm not saying that I like crappy production.. in fact, I love the wonderful instrument separation and crisp sounds that are found on Eventuality, but I think it could have been a bit beefier to get some more of the heaviness across. Also could've been more dynamic.

Basically, I look at Eventuality as a sterile version of Atheist in their later days. Very good, but could've been better.

Masterpiece!.......2006-10-06

Australia's Alarum are simply one of the best bands going around and this album really shows this. 4 virtuoso musicians creating complex, yet extremely musical songs that are technical yet sensitive. The perfect combination of death/ progressive metal and jazz influences i can not recommend this album highly enough.

For those that have been privileged enough to see them live, they are also one of the tightest bands you'll see.

Any fans of Cynic, Atheist, Watchtower, Spiral Architect.. or just good music in general should buy this album!

10/10

All Hail the New Jazz Metal Kings! .......2006-03-01

ALARUM - Eventuality
-
For anyone else feeling the void left from the Jazz, Tech-Metal greats such as Death, Cynic and Atheist... I say with confidence, this is Your Band! Australia's Alarum has pushed the envelope as hard as any of the previously mentioned bands with there debut Eventuality. What gives them their edge is they also add a perfect texture of melody.
DIVERSITY PEOPLE! It is Important! Songs like `Receiver' and `Remote Viewing' have these beautiful, fulfilling guitar melodies... Whereas `Inertial Grind' is Old School Speed/Death Metal fused with a catchy chorus.

Musically, these guys are pretty much raising the bar for `Talent'. In fact I find it difficult to remember such musically ability unleashed on a debut album... (Well, maybe DEP's Calculating Infinity...) The Guitar work is absolutely fantastic... some of the jazziest, craziest and downright kick ass solos I've heard. The Bass work is often quite busy as well... seldom does he perform just a simple backdrop to the Guitars usually he is going just as balls out as they are. Also he handles the Vocals which are good but not yet great.... I feel with a little voice instruction has tons of potential. His `Metal' voice is reminiscent of the late Chuck Schindler and his softer voice often uses some effects to blend it into the music. Last but certainly not least, the Drumming is phenomenal, switching from one complex beat to the next... with styles ranging from Jazz and Rock to Metal and Grind.

All I can say is if you enjoy Complex Jazz Inspired Technical Metal (That was a mouthful...) You owe it to yourself to checkout this bands Stunning Debut.

Favorite Songs: Receiver, Woven Imbalance, Remote Viewing and Inertial Grind
-5 Stars

IF YOU LIKED, AGREED OR APPRECIATED THIS. PLEASE CLICK YES FOR:
"Was this review helpful?"

Technically spellbinding and progressive death/thrash/jazz metal fusion.......2005-11-25

While nu-metal, melodic death, and metalcore continue to bury all the credible elements of metal, I cannot help being enthusiastic and optimistic because of the continual emergence of free-thinking and hard-working bands who reinvent what it means to be dexterous and innovative.

And what other genre is so perfectly and completely defined by these two elements, than jazz?

With Eventuality, Alarum joins the ranks of Atheist, Ephel Duath, Psyopus, Aghora, Spiral Architect, and a crop of other classic and more contemporary bands, in demonstrating why metal may be the only mainstream genre which consistently deconstructs preconceptions about what music is.

What plagues some of these technical bands, though, is what seems to be a forced purpose. The previously mentioned bands have made names for themselves because the progressions of their songs seem natural, and a a true sum of their parts' influences and personalities.

Eventuality possesses this exact kind of character. Isolated and blended moments of death, grind, thrash, jazz, prog-rock, prog-metal, power metal, hard rock, ambient, and many other styles never suffer from oil and water syndrome, because Alarum, as experimental as its nature may be, has a clear sense of purpose.

So just as the musical influences are broad in scope, so to are the ways in which the band executes the songs. As you would expect, there are stylistic and time changes aplenty, but the band members weave between technically complex runs, groovier and more simplistic chord progressions, bass-led, guitar-led, keyboard-led moments, inhumanly fast soloing, discriminately sparse, yet melodic soloing, and the list goes on forever.

It is funny how innovation has, and continues to run life here on earth, yet it seems popular art forms, especially music, are so pathetically static, at least in the manifestations most accessible to the masses. Luckily for us metalheads, even within the company of an unprecedented number of diluting bands, the metal genre shows no signs of completely succumbing to mediocrity. Combining historically complex musical styles with the talent and ability to pull it off, Alarum ensures that future generations of metalheads will not have to live in a world of MeTalV.

Music CD:

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Gospel Songs from CA ~ Reno & Martin

Private Power ~ Paranoise

Vanishing Point ~ Underdog

Air Mail Music: Paris Accordeon ~ Various Artists

Novo Millennium ~ Jair Rodrigues

That Feeling Again ~ The Sensations

Live Archive 80's ~ Steve Hackett

Across the Sea of Time: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ~ John Barry

Valomone ~ Japanimation

Reflection ~ Pentangle