Last month, metal band Veil of Maya grabbed a new singer and fictional female inspiration for their recent album, Matriarch.
Arguably among top ten best metal albums of 2015, no one member in Veil of Maya’s roster is overshadowed in this new direction. This time around, the entire band’s talent is showcased more evenly than in previous albums. Graduating from six string baritones to sevenS and upping the ante with recently acquired vocalist Lukas Magyar, Veil of Maya’s Matriarch delivers a little little less flash while still holding on to the thrashy-ness that fans have grown to love.
Though Magyar’s high screams, low growls, and clear vibrato are brought to the table on a glorious china plate encased in a catchy melody sandwich, the introduction of the first clean vocals since the band’s inception isn’t the most notable change from previous vocalist Brandon Butler, who left the band during Matriarch’s inception due to “creative differences.”
While Veil of Maya has always included little easter eggs in their track titles, such as the Game of Thrones headnod “Winter Is Coming Soon” from their 2012 album Eclipse, Martiarch goes further by being their first album to follow a female inspired theme. Guitarist Marc Okubo fit the album’s concept around strong female characters from different fictional genres.
“All the tracks are named after powerful female characters that I found interesting,” he explains. “I always make code names for whatever songs I’m writing, and this time they all stuck to a theme.”
Fans will recognize some of their favorite characters as title tracks scattered throughout the album, from Final Fantasy VII‘s “Aeris,” to the mother of dragons, “Daenerys” from Game of Thrones, and even a few lesser known fandoms, such as “Lucy”and her split personality “Nyu” from Elfen Lied. As a huge fan of Brian K. Vaughan, Okubo’s “Three-Fifty” pays homage to Y: The Last Man‘s Agent 355, and he is currently reading the immensely popular Saga. Cue me on the edge of my seat waiting to hear Okubo riff some justice to the character Alana.
Although Okubo wrote the album to fit into his theme, new vocalist Lukas Magyar penned the lyrics separately and has only within recent months acquired the Internet to catch up on shows like Attack on Titan, with Matriarch‘s single named after the female protagonist, “Mikasa.” Watch the official video from Sumerian Records below, and be prepared for the tasty chorus to get stuck in your head for weeks. Sorry not sorry.
Matriarch also features less of the band’s old signatures, choosing instead to limit the vocals and blast beats to more appropriate timing. When used more sparingly, this enables the songwriting to effectively place pieces to create a better dynamic, rather than barrage the ears with consistent noodling. Though this is outside of the box for Veil of Maya, the execution is effortless as usual and there’s no doubt the album is a sleeper. There’s a song for every fandom, and obviously “Daenerys” is the best, because I’m 100% biased.
Veil of Maya’s Matriarch can be purchased here and tickets for the Summer Slaughter tour are on sale now at TicketFly. If you attend the Dallas date, don’t be surprised by the small, dark-haired gal bopping around. Just wave.
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The growing energy demands of the world and our dependence on non-renewable sources is quickly becoming our planet’s greatest problem. With dwindling reserves of oil and coal, science has been doing all it can to harness renewable energy sources to keep up our growing power appetite. We’ve all heard about wind and solar power, but there’s a new contender in town.
Just like solar and wind, we’re harnessing energy that’s already there – the magma sitting below our feet – to turn water to steam and steam to turn turbines that then generate electricity. It’s so simple and yet so effective that to date 70% of Iceland’s power consumption is sourced from geothermal sources. So with all this renewable energy, our planet is looking like it’s in great shape, right?
WRONG.
You’re telling me that a power company is pulling energy out of the earth all so we can watch TV? And nobody sees a problem with this?
So you people just WANT a Sephiroth to rise, don’t you? Well I have news for you. We don’t have time for a spooky motherfucker waving a too-long sword and preaching about his mommy issues wrecking our good time. Taking energy from space or the air or by burning dinosaur bones and plastic bags or whatever coal is made out of was too safe? Just have to go tempting fate by dicking about with the planet, huh?
Meet the man who’s going to kill us all – Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland
Now I’m not saying geothermal energy causes Sephiroths, but I damn well AM saying that it causes an environment in which Sephiroths can flourish! You don’t store your chicken at room temperature on the counter, and you don’t go fucking around with mother earth when we have so many unstable people with access to extrabigassswords.com.
“That would never happen! And even if it did, it’s not like Sephiroth won!”
Yeah, a ragtag band of god damn heroes stopped Sephiroth. Real warriors with names like Cloud, Barrett, and Tifa. But it’s 2015 and if I may say so myself, we’re all looking a bit doughy. Do you know anyone with names that slick sounding? No. We can’t depend on Caleb, Bradley, and Taylor to save the day.
Oh and by the way, did anyone even bother to see Advent Children? Did you see what happened when we hurt the planet too much? IT CREATED AN ENTIRE FUCKING DISEASE FOR THE HUMAN RACE BECAUSE FUCK YOU, I’M THE PLANET AND THIS IS MY LIFESTREAM NOT YOURS.
Basically, we’re all super-fucked and it’s Iceland’s fault.
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