Apocalyptica, Worlds Collide

Album: Worlds Collide
Artist: Apocalyptica
Year: 2007
Great, but could be better.

Turn your speakers on. Of course you should already be in the habit of turning your speakers on when you come to my blog because you have come to expect some high quality musical awesomeness when you visit.

So take a moment and listen closely. Let me tell you what you are NOT hearing. You are NOT hearing a down-tuned electric guitar. You don’t hear any guitars at all. You don’t even hear any bass guitar. You don’t hear any synthesizers either.

All you hear are drums and cellos. That’s all. Sure these are cellos on steroids – occasionally electrified, amplified, and distorted – but they are all cellos and not guitars. (To be completely honest, there is also a short piano part in this song.)

Apocalyptica started out as four cellists from Finland playing Metallica songs on their first two albums. Now they are three cellists and a drummer with the occasional guest musician and/or singer.

Featured singers on this album include Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Till Lindermann of Rammstein, Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace, and Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil.

I love what this band does. They force you to admit that the most seemingly unmetal instrument can in fact belong in a metal environment – and can do very well at it. They push the boundaries of the instruments that they have worked hard to master. They blur the lines of what belongs where.

There are a few things about this album that I’m not too fond of. It seems to be geared more toward metal, than to prog. Only one song is longer than 4.5 minutes (5:49). And they mostly follow a typical hard rock song structure, even the instrumentals, which makes them a bit simple and predictable for my taste.

The mastering level seems to be a bit hot, too. I don’t have the fancy software to prove it by graphing the waveform; I’m just relying on my ears, but it seems to lack some dynamics that I’m sure where there with the original performance, and there could be a little more clarity to allow the beautiful texture of their instruments to shine through. It’s not bad at all; but it might be able to be better. But then I’ve been a bit spoiled by listening to a lot of Steven Wilson recordings lately.

In a nutshell, Apocalyptica causes the metal heads and the classical prudes to take a look at each other and realize that they aren’t so different after all. And that is exactly what I’ve always believed. I will definitely be on the lookout for more of their albums.

(Added Worlds Collide by Apocalyptica to rock box)