Matt Smartt » Music

Trivium’s Shogun

Matt — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:32:47 +0000

I picked up Trivium’s latest album: “Shogun” the other day. Kudos to them, the album is amazing! It’s a mixture of everything they’ve done over the years, some heavy stuff, some not so heavy stuff, but overall the albums sound and songs blew me away!

The guitar work on the album is by far the best Trivium have ever done! Also the drums are phenomenal! I saw a brief documentary on the making of the album, and found out that the drums were recorded with whole takes at a time. Not many good metal bands these days can play the song perfect in the studio all the way through to get a full drum take.

Matt Heafy’s voice also is in top shape. He screams a lot as well as clean singing, and overall it’s a great balance! His screams are a lot more brutal than on Ascendancy, which I like.

Overall I loved the album, and the title track ‘Shogun’ is a 12 minute masterpiece!

When they go on their North American tour, I’ll be sure to get tickets to see these guys live. I know they will pull off any of the new songs live!

EZdrummer + DFH

Matt — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:50:30 +0000

Well as you know, I had a birthday last week! With my birthday monies, I decided to buy Toontrack’s EZdrummer and the EZX expansion Drumkit From Hell! As I have not installed yet, I can’t write a review yet, but as soon as I have them up and running, I’ll be sure to give a detailed review and even post some audio samples!

Basically the ideas behind this software plugin, is that you can bang out professional sounding drum tracks for recording in a matter of seconds! You can aslo use this software to trigger MIDI devices, or take an existing MIDI file, and turn it into pro sounding drums!

Drumkit From Hell was recorded in Sweden in Dug Out Studios, the very same studio whereone of my favourite bands: In Flames recorded many an album! DFH was also recorded and produced by Meshuggah’s drummer, and the band actually used to software in a couple of their albums!

I look forward to being able to play around with this thing, and work it into my own recordings and demos! When I get my Line 6 POD X3 Pro, i’ll be all set for pro home recording!

A Sense of Purpose - In Flames Album Review

Matt — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:13:20 +0000

I got my hands on a copy of In Flames new album “A Sense of Purpose” a while back, and I’ve listening to it a lot on the bus lately that I thought I’d do up a mini ‘album review’! From first impressions, you may think “what the hell happened to them?” But after hours of careful listening, I found that their infamous melodic elements are strong and very much there! The opening track “The Mirror’s Truth” is very well crafted and arranged. Track 4 “Alias” I was lucky to hear live, when I saw In Flames @ Gigantour this year, and I liked the clean interlude they pimped in there! I have to admit, I wasn’t much of a fan of their choice of guitar tones, but it grows on you eventually. They used the same musical scale for both “The Mirror’s Truth” and “Delight And Angers”, and for a split second I thought I was listening to the same song, but they’re both great tracks!

Also, for the record, they are a really great band to see live, in my opinion, Anders (vocalist) has an awesome stage presence, and really gets the crowd pumped! They’re live sound has to be one of my favorite, the guitars and drums are really well defined and balanced, and Anders vocals pump through and really get you crazy!

All in all, In Flames have a more ‘mainstream’ peice of work, however it is excellent and I highly recomend it to anyone who really digs melodic metal, or just some great feel good metal!

New Babies

Matt — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:47:19 +0000

Got a new guitar, and a new camera. They’re nice!

Next on the Agenda

Matt — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:51:53 +0000

I want this. And this.

Laid to Rest

Matt — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:58:07 +0000

I’ll be honest in saying that the American metal act Lamb of God were not on my priority list…until now. I know I’m late in discovering their unique talent and sound but I can’t get over how tight and great they are. I’ve been practicing a few Lamb songs to help improve my own guitar technique (yes I play guitar). There are only a few ‘beefs’ I have with the group. The first being, I’m not totally digging Randy’s choice of vocals. I find they’re a bit too harsh and sometimes difficult to understand. The second is the use of the ‘F’ word. Apparently it’s great for effect (certainly turns some heads), but I find it a little over done and unnecessary. Other than that, the song I’m about to show you kicks some serious arse![audio:http://www.mattsmartt.net/wp-content/audio/laid_to_rest.mp3]

I Sherwood

Matt — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 01:50:29 +0000

Last Wednesday night I had the amazing privilege of scoring tickets to see Relient K @ The Opera House. It was an amazing night over all, and in fact I discovered a new amazing band. Their name is Sherwood , and they opened for Relient K. Yes they are an interesting group, as they like to blend disco with pop-rock, but I really was amazed and thought I might be able to convert some of you.[audio:http://www.mattsmartt.net/wp-content/audio/the_only_song.mp3]