★★★☆ It would take a PhD in Djent Studies to correctly identify this album as Monuments and not TesseracT. But there’s something refreshing in the way that the band double down on their jerky tendencies, while putting down more layers than ever before. Also, Monuments definitely throw down the heavy when they feel like it. See the rest here
The headbanging is appropriately absurd for this also-ridiculous Meshuggah track, and yeah I kept expecting to see fingers flying. So fargin’ metal!
I really dug the Vader album. The Septicflesh was a bit too disjointed, even for me. Check out the new Origin album – tasty!
We’re at the halfway mark of 2014, and I already have enough contenders for the Arsies. See the rest here
★★★☆ I’m loving the mix of sensibilities on this brutal death metal album: the punky blitzkrieg approach (most of the songs on here are under 2 minutes each), the Death-by-way-of-Gorguts technicality, and above all the dark heaviness that permeates the whole thing. This is a guaranteed headbanger, a must-listen. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ “Grandiose” doesn’t quite cover what Septicflesh achieve on this symphonic metal album. Unfortunately, their pomp comes at the expensive of any kind of song cohesion or logic. Worse, the sudden changes within the song come frequently and unpredictably enough to make it difficult to allow yourself to get into any riff or mood with any real investment. See the rest here
★★☆☆ The great news about the latest COC album is that their ever-sludge-as-fuck ethic is finally current, thanks almost entirely to the evolving scene around them (and not through any real diligence of their own). As a result, COC sounds more relevant than ever. Alas, there’s a whole lot of familiar self-indulgence on this album as well, not all of it successful or effective. See the rest here
★★★☆ While this is still very recognizably ETIDcore, they have somehow permuted the goofiness of “Ex Lives” for a more focused, surprising, and interesting sophistication on this album. None of the band’s aggression of missing; instead, they let in a little seawater for extra flavor. The result is an album that more or less works, and works hard, for its incendiary 31 minutes. See the rest here
☆☆☆☆ This is doggedly imperfect and retro death metal/grindcore, to the point of embarrassment. Seriously, the only allowable excuses for a roomful of disparate people thinking that releasing an album in this sad condition was acceptable would be:
★★☆☆ Very middle-of-the-road beerhall metal. It’s fun, but the whole album sounds like you’ve heard it all before… because you have. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ There are a couple of interesting ideas on here, but the relentless and tiresome wall-of-lo-fi production aesthetics that are so typical of black metal wind up getting in the way. See the rest here
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