★★☆☆ Look, I get that this is a highly anticipated piece of prog metal, and clearly the band put a lot of care and thought and musicality into making it. It makes for an interesting and unpredictable ride… but as much as I want to, I just can’t get too worked up about this album. See the rest here
★★★☆ Push past the first impression of a lo-fi hardcore recording from the 90s, and you’ll be rewarded for listening to this album with a surprising range of moods and tempos. At times doomy, at times thrashy, it all works somehow, and makes for an engaging and energetic work that sounds a little like a whole bunch of other familiar bands… and yet at the same time, not quite like anything you’ve ever heard before. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ It’s not that this album is bad per se… but it just sounds so derivative and dated. The performances are blistering, but the anemic production and clichéd use of samples are so distracting that I just had a hard time wanting to pay attention. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is pretty much exactly what you want from a deathcore band. Breakdowns and brutality are the meat and potatoes of this band, and this album delivers dutifully. Don’t expect any surprises or evolution and you’ll do just fine. See the rest here
★★☆☆ After a promising and surprisingly meaty opening track, this album quickly reveals an unevenness to its songs. A lot of the latter songs feature riffs and sections seemingly lifted from other European metal bands (I can hear Soilwork and Meshuggah in “Rusted Nail,” as just one example). In Flames occasionally succeed in their attempts here to expand their repertoire, with almost enough hits to justify the misses. See the rest here
Last week, Zig posted info on my Facebook page about Katherine Ludwig, the face and voice of Metal Maniacs, who is now battling Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. I was shocked and saddened (but not entirely surprised) to find out that, on her own, she didn’t have all the resources she needed for her fight. See the rest here
★★★☆ While I’m no particular devotee of now-departed vocalist Peter Dolving, I do think that “The Dead Eye” was the greatest album the band ever released. That said, I also think that this new album is the best thing that The Haunted have done since. Sure, there are moments that will have more of a resemblance to Slayer and Lamb Of God more than to the band’s former work. See the rest here
★★★☆ This album caught me by surprise, in a way that reminds me of the feeling I’d had when I first heard Leprous’s 2011 masterwork “Bilateral.” This is prog metal with some next-level self-assurance, musicality, and originality. Trust me on this one. See the rest here
★★☆☆ As was the case with their previous album “Stalingrad,” Accept turn in a surprisingly potent and fresh collection of thrash tunes with their latest. At 58 minutes, however, the band do overstay their welcome a bit. See the rest here
★★★☆ It’s not often that a doom metal band show any sign of progressive leanings, but that’s definitely the case on this album. You definitely get the elegiac heft of a proper doom work, but at the same time you can hear an empowered directionality to the band’s wanderings, making Pallbearer sound more like Isis or Sleep than Crowbar. See the rest here
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