When I first heard Stuck Mojo in the mid-1990s, the sound was fresh and interesting – a solid, Southern-flavored metal band fronted by a rapper. With the rise of the rap-rock trend and the nu-metal trends in the late 90s and early part of this decade, the sound began to lose its edge. The band […]
Epic albums with big-name guest stars are an iffy proposition. The expectations those all-star lineups create can be a bit of a letdown. That was the case for me with the latest effort from Ayreon, which I found a bit boring. On this record, though, the guest stars get bits that better reflect their own […]
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN. Ho- hum another tough guy hardcore band has discovered Bay Area thrash and solos. With a lineup shuffle and label change, New York’s Sworn Enemy , after a couple of typical tough guy hardcore releases (As Real As It Gets and The Beginning of the End), have dumped the power chords and breakdowns in […]
“There is no one righteous, not even one; no one seeks God. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear […]
It’s difficult to find security in bands these days. At least half of the bands I look forward to seeing releases from take a turn for the worst at some point. So far Sweden’s Draconian only stay steady if not get better with each album. For those familiar with Arcane Rain Fell and Where Lovers […]
Cover tunes are somewhat of an abnormality for me. Even when it’s just one on an album of all originals it strikes me as lame, wasteful, and utterly cheesy. Though over the years we have heard some great covers, in any genre, it still presents mixed opinions from this reviewer. So when a pretty well […]
At the risk of losing what little credibility I have within the metal community, I have a confession to make. I do not own a single Vader release. Not one. In fact the last Vader record I actually heard was 2002’s Revelations, and before that the only Vader record I physically even owned in the […]
Well here it is, German metalcore big dogs Heaven Shall Burn’s new full length, Iconoclast, their fifth overall. I remember digging quite a bit their last, Deaf to Our Prayers, where they dropped the majority of the core in favor of a more straight forward and vicious melodic death attack – I thought it was […]
While a fairly standard metalcore meets death metal affair, Atlantis is the first Blood & Ink release I have enjoyed since Foreknown’s Calm Seas Don’t Make Sailors and With Blood Comes Cleansing’s debut Golgotha, as the likes of Skylines, Blessed By A Broken Heart, Stars Are Falling, Nashemah, The Gentleman’s Pistols, Burden of a Day […]
Thanks to the US postal service, it took numerous attempts an several months for me to get my copy of this for review from the label and after the wait, though I’m not completely sold, this is if anything, a very, very challenging and ambitious work. If you think the likes of Between the Buried […]
Let’s establish something at the outset. Arjen Lucassen is an absolute musical genius & visionary. His Ayreon discography alone is enough to solidify this fact. Not to mention his side project forays; Ambeon & Star One among them. His penchant for combining what sounds like every Rock & Metal sub-genre under the sun into double […]
When Brian Danilowski isn’t plucking his bass in Baltimore math-metallists Trephine, he straddles the time/space continuum with his experimental/noise solo project Darsombra. 2006’s Ecdysis only hinted at what was to come from this creative soul, as the new Eternal Jewel wraps the listener around sheer volume, both layered and frayed. “Auguries” resembles a classical-styled (with […]
You can take a kid out of punk, but you can’t take punk out of a kid, and Jonah Jenkins is a prime example. As the vox of some truly great Boston-based underground bands (Milligram, Miltown, and Only Living Witness to name a few), Jenkins resurfaces at the helm of Raw Radar War. The oddly-titled […]
Despite most tribute albums being overblown, indulgent, and downright selfish, Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess jumps on the crowded bandwagon with his own homage to his primary influences—but the difference is The Road Home doesn’t suck…at all. Rudess chooses a varied set list and hand-picks his musician friends to pull it off correctly. Emerson, Lake […]
Though oddly touted as ‘Blue Collar metal”, Pittsburg’s Once Nothing are more in line with the Southern infused likes of Maylene And the Sons of Disaster, Cancer Bats, The Showdown and Remove The Veil, but add a heftier, sterner metalcore/hardcore tone rather than a more drawling rock backbone to their Southern core. Still though, the […]
Lost in the current retro thrash revival is the fact that Norway’s Audiopain have been chugging along and kicking out 10 plus releases since 1998, two EP/splits just last year, and their latest 6 track offering, is arguably the most pure throwback and raw of all the so called current thrash revivalists. Whole promoted as […]
After NonAnthropgenic and SoulSavior, V:28’s trilogy is apparently now complete with VioLution, which basically continues their industrial black-ish metal tone that still imbues a sort of modern Enslaved meets label mate Havoc Unit in a blackened industrial visage. The thing is, it’s still just relatively uninteresting as nothing really ever ‘happens’ or peaks on the […]
Despite a lengthy discography dating back to 1998, Germany’s JaKa never seemed to make the impact you’d expect in the grindcore genre, and I think part of it is they are just a little too experimental for the grindcore crowd, not quite death metal or serious enough for the death metal fans, and simply too […]
This is melancholic black metal from the USA. This is their second full length, and their demos were recently combined on cd as well, so the whole discography is readily available. Krohm is a relatively new band, with the first full length in 2004 after forming in 1995 by Dario Derna, who was previously, back […]
Estonia’s Goresoerd deliver 16 short tracks of chunky, blasting, groovy grindcore with a tongue in check delivery that should appeal to fans of Blood Duster and a lot of the Obscene Productions stuff. Though hardly a groundbreaking record, the usual mix of short, sharp punky blasts (“For Idiots All Over the World”, “Circle of Masturbators”, […]
Italy’s Tragodia are not doing anything new in the realms of romantic Gothic metal, as their synth backed, catchy yet despondent riffs and male/female vocal trade off has been perfected by the likes of Thalarion, Beseech and Lacuna Coil, but it’s an acceptable entry into the genre. An expected, crisp clean (Finnvox Studio) production delivers […]
Hailing from Tampa, Florida, Mena Brinno (which translates as “Moon Fever”), is a female fronted Gothic metal band featuring former Royal Anguish players Katy Decker and Marius Kozlowski. And while delivering many of the usual Gothic metal elements, Mena Brinno has more in common with the likes of To-Mera and Alas in that it tries […]
Waldemar Sorychta (Grip Inc., Rotting Christ) has been busy recently. Not only did he release the album from his new project, Enemy of the Sun record late last year, he also released this German entry into female fronted Gothic metal, a genre he has had considerable influence in, having produced the likes of Lacuna Coil, […]
While most of these thrash “revivalist” are culling their influences from the 80’s Bay Area scene, Las Vegas’ Avenger of Blood are content with borrowing from the darker, heavier and death metal tinged sounds of Slayer, Dark Angel and the German scene – but Kreator in particular. Actually, the similarities between early Kreator and Avenger […]
Not many could have been happier about the return of Bay Area legends Death Angel than me – since I first truly discovered metal and immediately fell in love with thrash, Death Angel has always been a band that really stuck out to me, not miles away from their peers, but truly keeping their own […]