Incantation — Profane Nexus
✦✧✧✧ Well, this is at least a little better than the band’s previous album “Dirges Of Elysium.” But it’s still stonily and remorselessly retro. See the rest here
Author Archives: arse
OMG QUICKSAND
Quicksand are touring the US this fall. I’ve managed to see them live on three separate occasions (twice post-breakup), and they’re still as feral as ever. So I was already feeling pretty excited… until the band took to social media an hour ago to tease us with new material, including the enigmatic-but-not-really mention: “interiors | 2017”
See the rest here
A new level
This is amazing.
Warbeast — Enter The Arena
✦✦✧✧ An old fashioned slab of music that splits its time between deathy thrash and energetic stoner metal, like a bunch of Slayer B-sides as if hastily mixed by Joe Barresi. The title track reminds me of a sloppier Slipknot. But I’m not harshing on this album with any real malice; it’s a fun enough time, in a barroom-brawler way. See the rest here
Dead Cross — Dead Cross
✦✦✧✧ I’m sure there are great ways to avoid having Dead Cross sound like “Mike Patton, Dave Lombardo, and two other dudes.” This album, however, is not one of them. See the rest here
Paganizer — Land Of Weeping Souls
✦✦✧✧ This is what vintage Swedish Death Metal is all about: rawness and blast beats and “blech”s and nasty tone. This is also something you’ve definitely heard before. See the rest here
River Black — River Black
✦✦✧✧ This mostly-Burnt-By-The-Sun not-a-supergroup (also featuring ex-members of Municipal Waste and Revocation) is some nasty business. It’s first and foremost a tour of various kinds of aggression and swagger (evocative at times of Norma Jean, Entombed, and Sepultura at their punkiest). This, the band’s eponymous debut, is a weighty chunk of red meat without any filler. See the rest here
Byzantine — The Cicada Tree
✦✦✦✧ Groovy, surefooted, at once familiar and alien… this is classic Byzantine, doing what they do best. As has become par for the course with this band, I still don’t know whether to classify them as prog, thrash, hard rock, djent, agitprop… comparisons to Lamb Of God, Porcupine Tree, Alice In Chains, Meshuggah… all of these approximations fit, and yet all miss the mark. See the rest here
Rings Of Saturn — Ultu Ulla
✦✧✧✧ This is little more than an 8-bit chiptune album with breakdowns. See the rest here
Prong — Zero Days
✦✦✧✧ This is a wildly off-balanced album. Track after track, you’re not sure if you’re listening to a Prong deep cut, a latter-era King’s X single, a particularly aggressive Linkin Park track, the title track of the next Tremonti album, etc. But despite the odds, this makes for an oddly compelling listen. See the rest here
