✦✦✦✧ So much swagger! The band have expanded their already unique sonic palette since 2014’s “Heavy Fruit” (although it’s still hard to avoid thinking about modern-era Alice In Chains). The result is more surefooted, more convincingly emotional, and at times far more metallic than anything they’ve done before. Also, holy crap: they’ve got a song called “Fritz The Dog“! See the rest here
✦✦✦✦ This album is batshit insane. I’d never even heard of this dude until two weeks ago. Then I popped on the first track, and after about a minute, I was all, “Is that… James Labrie?!” Then I checked out the personnel listing on this album. Eleven vocalists! I’m not entirely sure how this blatantly disjointed approach to guest musicianship avoids devolving into a modern prog version of Spinal Tap’s “Break Like The Wind”. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Nu-metalcore through and through. Every formulaic ploy (breakdowns, cleansingings, background keyboards, etc.) falls at least a little short, and the riffs are universally lackluster and tired. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Beerhall power metal served up with a heaping dollup of 80s nostalgia thrown in. It starts off well, but loses its cohesion about halfway through. It’s just not as good as I’ve heard from Battle Beast before. But at least you’ll still have fun losing count of all the callbacks to Heart, Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, etc See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ A surprisingly listenable EP from an artist who generally revels in artisanally industrial filth. But don’t worry; A&P’s brand of corroded doom is still in the mix, merely leavened. This reminds me of NIN’s song for the game Quake… or Fredrik Thordendal’s song for Wolfenstein: The New Order… These are probably not favorable comparisons, but they accurately hint at a halfheartedness that dogs this release. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Pleasing instrumental post-metal in the vein of Russian Circles or even Godspeed at their most sinister. They’re not pushing the envelope very hard here, but they are delivering solid and dramatic shoegaze. Nota bene: they’ve got two drummers, although not really using that dynamic to its fullest potential, if you ask me. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ A classic case of an album in need of a proper editor. This is a weird mix of metalcore, avant-garde, prog metal, Queensrÿche-ish sensibilities, and bad poetry. Of the album’s 71 minutes, at least 15 minutes may have been better left unreleased. The stuff that works here is quite commendable, and skews toward Daniel Gildenlöw’s and the rest of the band’s experimental natures; the stuff that doesn’t work tends to fail on the ground of emotional resonance. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This is not an easy album to listen to, even with the by-now-familiar technodeath caveats and Gorguts comparisons that this inevitably invites. For one thing, the production is even less polished than that of the preceding “Labyrinth Constellation,” if you can imagine that. At the same time, it’s oddly more… obvious?… See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This feels like an album of montage music from 80s American karate flicks. I just checked to make sure I wasn’t actually wearing sweatbands. At least the bass is all up in yo face. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Pseudo-orchestral, pseudo-electronic melodeath that, despite the overly long adjectives, hardly nudge the envelope in any meaningful way. Did DT’s “Atoma” leave you wanting more last year? Fortunately for you, this album will certainly dull the edge of your want. Unfortunately for MPE, it does so without leaving much of a lasting differentiable impression. See the rest here
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