Welcome to Issue 13 of Tracks of Creation. As I write this editorial, I can see the yellowing leaves on the trees drying up and falling outside my window. The lawns are becoming littered with dead leaves, yet the Canadian "indian Summer" continues to bring forth sunshine and warmth. Nevertheless, already the Summer season is drawing to a close, and even the sunshine itself has a distant and hazy wintry air about it. It is in this hermetic atmosphere that I put together the reviews, articles and features in this issue to the accompaniment of the dark melodies of Limbonic Art's, Moon in the Scorpio emanating from my stereo (an excellent album by the way). It is an atmopshere that lends itself to contemplation which is perhaps appropriate enough for this landmark issue of Tracks of Creation which marks our transition (in my opinion at least) from amateur-class E-Zine to professional quality music magazine. In any case, we certainly welcome your input and hope to continue to improve TOC in every subsequent issue.
We had planned to update the appearance of the magazine this issue. Unfortunately due to a lack of time, we have not completed the new design. Therefore you will have to wait for it to be unveiled in the next issue. I am pleased to note that our updated list of online magazine reviews has been completed thanks to the diligent labours of our producer, Neil StLaurent. We are looking forward to your comments in this regard, and we hope you will enjoy our comprehensive treatment of the online underground scene. I would also like to express great personal satisfaction that we were able to obtain an interview with Johan Edlund of Tiamat thanks to the generosity of Century Media Records to complement our review in this issue of Tiamat's newest release, A Deeper Kind of Slumber.
Recently I have been thinking about the direction in which heavy music has developed. One can no longer say that there is an equivalence relation between the "heavy, hard and dark" music featured in this magazine and the term "Metal". In the past, when asked "What is Metal?" one could point to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax (more or less in that order IMHO) and say "There, these are the definitive Metal bands." At least when I was discovering Metal in the mid 80's, that's what I felt about the matter. Today bands which used to produce brutal Death/Black Metal like Tiamat or Amorphis are performing highly diverse and experimental music, while others that established themselves in the 80's such as Testament (reviewed in this issue) have reinvented themselves in an incredibly heavy incarnation. This is by no means a "bad thing." The incredible creativity and diversity of this dark music that is so hard to specifically define yet which brings such fulfillment to its fans and practitioners makes it the most imaginative and rich form of musical expression on the current music scene. One can only hope that it will acquire the recognition it deserves in the popular culture now dominated by premanufactured pop artists [I'd swear the Hansons were culled from the industrial waste by-product of some chemical plant] and sloppy alternative and punk bands. Nevertheless, I cannot entirely regret that this form of music has remained relatively unknown on the popular scene (especially in North America) since it gives those who do enjoy it a unique sense of community.
On that note, I hail all those who read Tracks of Creation. Needless to say, we have got many more great reviews, articles, profiles and features in store for you in this issue. We hope you will enjoy the product of the hard work that has gone into this issue, as with every issue of Tracks of Creation.
Vlad Levin, Editor of Tracks of Creation