Dyscarnate — With All Their Might
✦✦✦✧ Fear Factory meets Overkill meets Gojira meets Meshuggah meets Lamb Of God meets a runaway train meets a goddamned meat grinder meets a fist to your face. See the rest here
Author Archives: arse
The Contortionist — Clairvoyant
✦✦✦✧ This is a clear step up for the band from their previous album, 2014’s “Language.” The music here hews a little closer to Chimp Spanner or TesseracT territory, without ever really going full ham. The rest is, of course, ambient techno-djazz. See the rest here
Ufomammut — 8
✦✦✦✧ Ufomammut have for years toiled to perfect the tricky subsubgenre of accessible progressive stoner doom. With that context, their latest album is a towering achievement in that pursuit. Emotive. Interesting. Exotic. Wandering. Concise. Hypnotizing. And now with 50% nastier bass tone! Worth at least two listens. See the rest here
Epica — The Solace System
✦✦✧✧ Exactly what you’d expect: Gothenberg-ish metal with an operatic female vocalist that hits all the checkboxes, yet still fails to effectively inspire. See the rest here
Akercocke — Renaissance In Extremis
✦✦✦✧ All hail the long-awaited return of the British band’s unique jazzy-gothy-doom-death alchemy. If anything, this Akercocke album is their most experimental, evoking in rapid and unpredicted fashion the works of Opeth, vintage Rush, Cocteau Twins, Napalm Death, Powermad, U.K., Leprous, Porcupine Tree… and on and on. A fascinating and rewarding listen. See the rest here
Paradise Lost — Medusa
✦✦✦✧ This album surprised me. Surprisingly compelling riffs adorn like filigrees a sturdy base of energetic doom, adding an energy and diversity that I don’t remember from past Paradise Lost albums. See the rest here
Arch Enemy — Will To Power
✦✦✧✧ After a downright Otep-like opening, this album settles into an uninspired, wanky power metal mode that bears a vague resemblance to Arch Enemy albums of old. The band can still shred from time to time (and how could they not, with Jeff Loomis joining Mike Amott), but for the most part it sounds like they’re making sure this’ll sound good in the arenas that they’re filling up on the road. See the rest here
Septicflesh — Codex Omega
✦✦✧✧ Pathologically bombastic as always, although the extreme metal and symphonic passages are less disjointed on this album than they were on “Titan.” There are pleasant attempts here to push the band’s own envelope of creativity and experimentation, and Logan Mader’s production wisely emphasizes the actual band’s performances more than it did last time out. See the rest here
Sannhet — So Numb
✦✦✧✧ Consistency seems to be the name of the game for this Brooklyn trio, and their latest slab of instrumental shoegaze metal can boast the same feats and fumbles as last time. This is engrossing and effectively moody, like the best parts of Isis and Deafheaven. At the same time, one gets the sense from the beginning that this isn’t stuff that’ll easily come to mind when the music stops. See the rest here
Thy Art Is Murder — Dear Desolation
✦✦✧✧ 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. Well, on this album the Australian deathcore quintet give you that brütality in spades, and they successfully throw in just a little innovation to boot. Still, you can depend on blast beats and breakdowns to carry you through this frenetic fusillade. See the rest here
