Pig Destroyer — Mass & Volume
★★☆☆ Meaty as ever, although most of the material on this EP is literally feedback. Still, if you have love in your black heart for PD, this recording is for you. See the rest here
Author Archives: arse
Scar Symmetry — The Singularity (Phase I – Neohumanity)
★★☆☆ Take the Scar Symmetry you think you knew, and randomly add J-Pop, Meshuggah, and EDM to the mix. This works more often than you’d think, and at its best the album is a bona fide headnodder. But these changes happen mid-song, making it difficult to get into a real groove with the album. See the rest here
Supermassive Black Holes — Calculations Of The Ancients
☆☆☆☆ Complete fucking wankery. They’re accomplished musicians, that much is clear. But with that much latitude comes a responsibility to make something even remotely listenable. Which this is not. See the rest here
Lo-Pan — Colossus
★★★☆ “Colossus” is a stripped-down but meaty affair, sharing as much in common with Baroness as it does with RATM, post-Layne AIC, the Jesus Lizard, and Stanford Prison Experiment. Everything works here in the band’s favor. The bass and guitars are forever locked in an effectively feral unison, the drums punctuate and drive without mercy, and Jeff Martin’s vocals soar over it all with a self-assured boldness. See the rest here
Electric Wizard — Time To Die
★☆☆☆ While this is a credible paean to vintage Black Sabbath, this albums gets ponderously tiresome in a hurry. The album is so relentlessly sludgy and lo-fi that it goes from “stoned immaculate” to “trying too hard.” Also, every single track has the ability to feel like it’s too long, regardless of actual clock time. See the rest here
Rigor Mortis — Slaves To The Grave
★★★☆ Listening to “Slaves To The Grave” feels a bit like doing homework… and I mean that in a good way, mostly. The album defies expectation at every turn. It’s got a lo-fi production aesthetic that belies the excellent musicianship and sonic craftsmanship that lurks throughout the whole album. Also, while the musical mainstay here is clearly a speedy thrash, the studious and patient ear can pick out variations in the music evocative Ministry and Gwar — two bands obviously shaped by Rigor Mortis in their overlapping histories. See the rest here
Sick Of It All — Last Act Of Defiance
★★☆☆ Yep. This is an SOIA album, alright. See the rest here
As We Draw — Mirages
★★☆☆ This is a strong post-metal noisefest, a kind of Isis-by-way-of-Sonic-Youth exploration that is dark and compelling. At the same time, the almost aimless meandering does work against the listener’s need for a sense of purpose to the journey. And yet, the whole album features aural delights that are hard to stop listening to. See the rest here
1349 — Massive Cauldron of Chaos
★☆☆☆ This is a whole lot of so-what, punctuated by occasional sprinkles of halfway interesting riffs. To make matters worse, the band veer between black metal and other genres (death metal? speed metal? punk?) in ways that sound arbitrary and ill-fitting. I’ll give them props for not being predictable, at the very least, but otherwise I’m not really a fan. See the rest here
Xerath — III
★★★★ This is everything you’d want to meloprog metal, and consummately tasteful from start to finish. Imagine Symphony X by way of Soilwork. Bombastic at all the right moments, the sweetest of leads, and muscular right when you need a good punch in the gut, too. See the rest here
