✦✦✦✧ One of Periphery’s best albums to date. Of course, as is by now mandatory for this band, I need to give you my first impressions, song by song:
“Reptile”: absolutely masterful; a new high water mark for the band; Periphery’s Catch 33
“Blood Eagle”: a fun slice of Periphery when they’re feeling their most metal; all over the radio, though, so I’m probably gonna get over it real quick. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is some feral crusty mayhem, now even more laced with post-punk nastiness. I finally hear the hint of a sound for the band that isn’t immediately reminiscent of someone else. (If hard pressed, I’d name The Haunted, Nails, and of course Dying Fetus, in equal measure.) See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Solid prog metal from the Cynic and Sadus school of neoclassical musicianship and sooooo much fretless bass (good to hear Hugo Doyon-Karout’s tireless perambulations all over the place). This is an interesting and promising debut; while it loses points for cookie monster vocals and overall anemic production values, it’s still an almost-great album. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This is a more proggy kind of Floridian death metal (think old school Morbid Angel with just a hint of Pestilence or Malevolent Creation thrown in). Emphasis on Floridian: this band seem to have doubled down on a garage band ethic, albeit with some welcome bass in the mix; worse is the band’s disregard for the listener’s flow. See the rest here
✦✦✦✦ This is Devin Townsend at his most devy. More than ever, he imbues all of his music here with metal, but in oblique and non-ostentatious ways. Put another way, this album of progressive rock, electronica, choral music, and soundscapes just happens to treat the panoply of metal subgenres as source motifs. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ I’m shocked: not only is this the most not-bad Todd La Torre-era album the band have ever released, but it also finally halfway sells me on the very notion of a post-Empire Rÿche. (Speaking of La Torre, he not only sings on this album, but he also plays drums on this album instead of Scott Rockenfield. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ I can believable: 33 years after giving doom metal its name, Candlemass come back with an album every bit as menacing, gritty, and powerful as anything else in their catalog. Bringing back founding vocalist Johan Langquist is a winning touch, as is Tommy Iommi guest soloing on “Astorolus.” The album loses points for its buzzsaw production and luddite attitude to innovation, but these are meaningless quibbles in the face of a foregone classic. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Don’t be fooled by the album’s decidedly weak first minute: In Flames shred all over the place on this one. The band are no fools when it comes to delivering what their fans want, and “I, The Mask” is another in the unbroken line of the metal primacy of Gothenburg, may it never fade. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ There are a number of reasons to dislike this solo project from one of Lamb Of God’s guitarists. It’s fucking weird to start a 2019 album with a track sung by Chester Bennington (R.I.P.). It’s less weird to follow it up with vocalists from Papa Roach and Screaming Trees. But mostly, the album swings from metal to alt rock and back again, and the moves toward the latter rarely pay off for me. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Trvly emotive and moody, if not entirely memorable or innovative black metal. The piano and violin are welcome additions to Soar’s atmospheric style. And the vocals take a reasonable back seat to the rest of the proceedings. All in all, my favorite Soar album to date, for what that’s worth. See the rest here
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