Compared to the dense, melancholy psychedelia of Origo, Lazarus Bird surprises from note one by taking a confident step back to Burst‘s hardcore roots. Opener “I Hold Vertigo” attacks with a lurching hammerblow riff, and vocalist Linus Jägerskog tears into his work as if he’s rediscovering it. He sounds fresher and meaner than anything I […]
I have to be honest; I don’t know why anyone reviews Motorhead albums anymore. If you haven’t been paying attention these guys have been doing roughly the same thing for the past 33 years, namely blowing out everyone’s eardrums and loving it. These guys make Nigel Tufnel look like a weakling because Motorhead clearly goes […]
Failing to catch me upon a couple of initial spins, The Immunity Zone, a fourth release from Sweden’s Progressive Metal eccentrics Andromeda, finally lured me into its trap by means of its huge instrumental sections and extremely impressive songwriting. I always thought that one of the principal attributes of Andromeda’s music was its covert ability […]
*thwack* *thud* *sswack* *thwack* Excuse me, I was just beating a dead horse. I figured if I caught it on tape, maybe it could land me a record deal. It’s really no different than Arizona’s A Breath Before Surfacing (ABBS) – mish-mashing At the Gates riffs with excessive blasting, breakdowns, death grunts and growls with […]
Hailing from Lawrence, Kansas, Samothrace (not sure if named after the Greek Island or a race of Emperor guitarists) have come out of nowhere with a stunning debut album that mixes the girth and throb of psychedelic sludge/Post Rock (think Minsk and Rwake) with the utterly rending, layered harmonies and beautiful yet wilting melody of […]
From the label that brought you the excellent Lo-Ruhamah comes another Christian black metal release, this way on the form of Puerto Rico’s Azmaveth (named after one of King David’s strongest warriors) and their symphonic, challenging take on black metal. Christian black metal from Puerto Rico? Yeah, I know, but amid the glut of symphonic […]
“Why is it you and not me?” and “but you’re strong enough to live on,” both lines from Destruction pop into my head. I’m undecided if the mighty have fallen or if it is me. On the first few listens the music is too mellow and stripped bare of metalness. I don’t like the new […]
Finland has long been a hotbed for intensely melodic metal. Take the addictive, neoclassical thrash of (earlier) Children of Bodom, the overripe pomp of Nightwish or the thrilling Viking blare of Moonsorrow – all lush, atmospheric and stylish as hell. And that’s not even touching wackadoo black metal like …And Oceans or the classic, always-evolving […]
What’s this? A hefty, experimental metal band from France on Prosthetic Records? Is it the new Gojira? Nope, but close. Originally released on Dental Records in 2007, it appears Prosthetic Records has snapped up this Alsace band’s debut in order to whet everyone’s appetite for the upcoming The Way of All Flesh, and good thing […]
Like Hollow Corp’s recent The Cloister of Radiance album, the third album from Denmark’s The Psyke Project was originally released in Europe last year and now has a stateside distribution. Also like Hollow Corp, The Psyke Project mix harsh, caustic metal with a few injections of post rock, and gain the results, while solid are […]
Admittedly, I’ve never been much into punk. Got into metal, stayed put. By the time I finally got around to checking out some of the much-vaunted bands I’d always heard about – The Misfits and Samhain being the two that most piqued my interest, being a horror buff and all – I was kinda disappointed. […]
Are you tired of the great thrash revival that is going on these days? If you answered yes then I would say avoid this record like the plague. However, if you’re more like me and miss The Crown with a vengeance then this isn’t such a bad thing. Stronghold of Men is probably an unnecessary […]
If you enjoy midpaced metal soaking in keyboards then you might as well stop reading this review and go right out and buy this. However I’ll keep going if you want a bit more detail to help you make up your mind. The vocals are of the clean variety and while they sound decent enough […]
This is going to be a hard album for me to review because being a professional demands more than just saying this sounds like bad AC-DC with really weak vocals. Imagine the Snake of the last few Voivod albums during a fit of whining and you have an idea of what I’m dealing with trying […]
Indricothere, living during the late Oligocene epoch (part of the Tertiary Period in the Cenozoic Era), is thought to be the largest land mammal that ever walked the earth. A distant relative of the rhinoceros, they were not as fearsome as their descendents would have you believe – they looked more like gigantic, tree-munching giraffes. […]
It’s been said that anyone who generalizes is an idiot, but it’s gotten to the point where if I see a CD that has a pretty face on the cover and the Napalm logo on the back, I can predict exactly what I’m going to get. Beast Within is no different: inoffensive, poppy midtempo gothic […]
Here’s a solid if unspectacular record from Britain’s Frightener who mix hardcore, grindcore and death metal into one crusty, rumbling album that on paper comes across as a mix of Napalm Death, Integrity and Entombed, but just lacking some creative brilliance to make it more than a mere mix of those appealing bands. With a […]
Every now and then a record comes along that is truly hard to describe to anyone, this is one such album. It is in fact not so much an album as an endurance test. This is something you listen to when you want to drive yourself over the edge in a bad way. I do […]
I’m probably the wrong person to be reviewing a prog album as for the most part the entire genre bores me. However I will try my best to explain where they lay in the progscape. My guess is that these guys would be right in the middle to be honest. They are accomplished musicians however […]
See, I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘Croptic crew from down under. I enjoy portions of Isle of Disenchantment and most of Scepter of the Ancients, but they just never struck me as a band I could listen to again and again. I saw them live at Summer Slaughter (their first North American […]
For those that don’t know, in the mid/late 90’s Overcast were a respected crossover/hardcore/metalcore band who had a couple of somewhat revered albums and EPs that some considered the start of the early metalcore movement (not the trite fashion show of today). However, when the band split up in 1996, vocalist Brian Fair joined Shadows […]
Now here’s a band that has come a long way. Slowly morphing from doom/death to moody, emotional rock, Anathema has lost some old fans, while gaining some new ones. But for the most part respect for them has been well preserved (and certainly well deserved). After some uncertainty of the band’s future, we’ve come to […]
Atrox has reminded me of one of the central tenets of my existence on this album, specifically the one about murdering anyone who thinks techno and metal are a good combination. This is very clean industrial-nu-metal without a hint of malice to it anywhere, even the Planet of the Apes sample. The drumming is the […]
Some people need to get more current with information technology, because this is how records like this happen. No one got the memo that Nu-metal was found dead in an alley with its Korn shirt torn to pieces, raped, stabbed, raped again and set on fire by a horde of people with good taste. This […]
While I enjoyed Misery Signal’s recent Controller effort, I have to admit the debut from this Lancaster, PA act stole some of that album’s thunder by delivering a very similar and almost as competent delivery of melodic, layered and emotional metalcore. While bands like It Prevails, Rosesdead and more recently November 5, 1955 have tried […]