✦✦✦✧ Take half of Job For A Cowboy, add the bassist from Black Dahlia Murder, and tell them that their longest song has to be under 4 minutes long, and what do you go? Your face in a meat grinder, that’s what! See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Look: I’m giving this album two stars in part because it’s amazing that this duo is still making music (if you know of any other studios at nursing homes, let me know!), but otherwise I could do without it. This is allegedly an album that explores different genres, but it all still sounds to me like vintage Norwegian black metal. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Squeeeeeeze those invisible oranges! This is Inter Arma at their most inhospitable and devastating; and while album-over-album increases in heaviness should be no surprise by now to anyone who’s been paying attention to this band, it’s still utterly debilitating to hear their latest culminations firsthand. The band continue to be progressive in their own way, but this time around they all but abandon any pretense of melody, channeling their creativity instead into rhythm and rage. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Who even wants to make industrial anymore? This is fucking awful. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This is a fun record to listen to. That said, whether you’re already a fan of FGA or are only hearing of their brand of orchestral tech death now for the first time, this album’s unvaried production and all-too-familiar riffage suggest that you should listen to the band’s previous album “King” instead. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Less entertaining than the band’s prior album “Forever Becoming,” this collection of instrumental sludgy post-metal songs asks too much indulgence in its aimlessness. I’m sure I’d like it a lot more if I was baked out of my fucking skull, but that should be a value-add, not a requirement. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ While I’m enthusiastic about the idea of “prog doom” (“doom prog”?) on paper, this album is a tough one to get aboard, likely because the outcome of such a formulation is (by definition) shoegazey and moribund. Still, this album is probably the best prog doom implementation you can find. Props to vocalist/guitarist/flautist Kelly Schilling for girding the whole album with a sumptuous lushness, although really the whole band is committed to this layered enterprise. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Shake them buns! See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I’m still not sure if this is metal. I will say however that I thoroughly enjoy pretending that this album has like 5 bass guitars on every track. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Have I ever said “djentcore” before? Because that’s what this is… and I kinda dig it. The best track on the album is its opener, “Behold The Crown” (which might win for use of pinch harmonics alone, and boy do they make a meal of it here). However, there is an almost-great tinge to almost every aspect of the album, from songwriting to riffage to production. See the rest here
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