✦✦✦✧ A highly anticipated prog metal album from Bay Area heroes does not disappoint. Newcomers to the band (and scene veterans) Evan Brewer on bass and Kyle Schaefer on vocals add a anchoring fullness to the sound, which is even shreddier than ever. And it’s nice to hear a return to a more dynamic sound. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is what I want a stoner album to be like: massive, patient, stanky, and heavy! Is 75 minutes too long? Fuck you! Or just wimp out before the final track, which clocks in at 16 minutes. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This album is chaotic and whackadoo, even by Destrage’s standards. It’s catchy, unpredictable, and devastatingly morose, even with plenty of the band’s ridiculous musicianship. It’s also exhausting to listen to; I’m not sure how they managed to embed so many hooks in so many other layers of equally interesting ear candy. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ I’m going to slightly buck the inevitable deluge of fawning press on this album: it’s great by modern metal standards, but solidly in the middle third of Revocation’s own catalog, at best. That is to say, you’re going to want to listen to this at least once, even if it’s not an instant classic. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ You need to get past the breakers on this album, which seems to almost defy an openminded listen. If you can get past the kneejerk dismissal that a lot of American black metal inspires (not unfairly), you’ll find a surprising and compelling new voice of progressive metal, with tasteful smatterings of other styles and subgenres. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ No more than ever, Halestorm is Lzzy Hale is Halestorm. Her vocals are front and center in the mix, and the lyrical content is transparently autobiographical. There’s a good mix of emotionality to the songs as well. So what if it’s more hard rock than metal? See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The band’s latest album leverages many of the successes of their previous experiments, expertly melded together into an intoxicating witches’ brew of progressively sludgey heaviness. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This album is perhaps the band’s catchiest. Relatively speaking. It’s still a feral dog of a sound, with production values that border on antisocial. But there’s an undercurrent of melody and progression that feels new. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The Long Island quartet’s third album is definitely the band’s best work yet: it’s much like its predecessor Crux, but tweaked and improved in almost every important way. The band’s trademark blend of bluesy hard rock and extreme metal sensibilities is very much intact here, but with more conventional and energizing choices in songwriting. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Shake them buns! See the rest here
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