✦✦✧✧ This doom album is a very mixed bag for me. On the one hand, if you’re looking for a recording of a band who are delivering jawdropping riffs, or you want to shake your fist triumphantly at the sky, this album is not for you in the slightest. On the other hand, I’m hardpressed to name another album this year that is as successfully moody, evocative, or noisome. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ I hope you’re hungry, because this 38-minute album is one seriously dense riff salad… served shredded! (See what I did there?) No longer satisfied with evoking a bygone era of death metal, Tomb Mold have apparently set 1990 as a starting point for interesting and innovative composition which rivals some of the most avant-garde offerings from 30 years ago. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ The last time TAIM put out an album, I said, “Typically, one doesn’t listen to TAIM for subtlety, or innovation, or expansion of the genre. One listens when in need of a good beating.” So why o why did they put a heightened emphasis on vocals, unclear yet fast riffing, prominent fake snare hits, and a generally squishy sonic character? See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I wouldn’t even call this rethrash: this is instead newly-minted vintage Bay Area thrash. (Oakland represent!) With a little more self-restraint/editing and crisper production, this album could be a modern classic. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ At its best, this album reminds me of vintage Sub Pop; at its worst, this is just more hipster-sludge. Of special note is the production, which offers a dynamic range of a shouting match. At least the songs are all mercifully brief. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Do you like well-produced power metal that deals with warfare? Then you already know about Sabaton, and this album gives you more of what you’ve come to expect. For the rest of us: this is sortakinda epic symphonic Eurometal with awkward vocals but tasty guitars. The most entertaining part of this album (about World War I) is just how literal the lyrics are; for proof, you need go no further than such songs as “In Flanders Fields,” “82nd All The Way,” and of course “The Red Baron.” See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Uninventive, uninspiring, and unnecessary. This is industrial by the book… if the book is from the mid-90s. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ If only all black metal was this interesting! Surprisingly shreddy and NWOBHM-tinged, while this is not quite as good as the band’s first album, “Outstrider” is still commendably inventive and easy to listen to. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Sludgy black noise post-metal word salad ouch my fucking ears! This makes The Armed sound tame, Torrential Downpour sound predictable. And that’s the main problem here: the album is such a punishing listen, I’m having a hard time feeling any kind of relationship to the music. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ On this album, He Is Legend have ratcheted up both their cheese and their heaviness. Their long-documented similarities with Alice In Chains are less glaring now, crowded out by hints of Converge, Mutoid Man, and Entombed. The band continue to be both a guilty pleasure and an under-discovered gem. One of the most unique sounding albums of 2019, even if it sounds like it’s straight out of 2004. See the rest here
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