✦✦✦✧ There is something both unabashedly old fashioned and cleverly fresh about this latest slab of death metal from Immolation. The sound here is nasty in that early-90s Deicide way, but also atmospheric in a way that leans almost progressive. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This album, from a dyed-in-the-wool metalcore, is surprisingly nü-metallic. Eddie Hermida and the band sound like Jonathan Davis & Co. half the time. (The other times, they sound more like Slipknot.) But the riffs and rhythms are sufficiently blow-out-your-speakers mean to not dismiss the album outright. Mostly, this feels like a band having a hard time moving in a unified direction. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Apparently, new blood (in the form of former members of TDTE and Glass Cloud) can improve things for Emmure. And yet, the fundamental problem exists: the band’s raison d’etre seems to be a misread of djent as merely an invitation for nu-metal to tune down lower. So, if your idea of a good time is a detuned Limp Bizkit, have I got an album for you. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The band continue their hofbrau’s-kitchen-sink pillaging of all other things sludgey and jangly, to great effect. What I said for their last album still holds: “Norma Jean meets Unsane meets Tool meets Clutch meets The Mars Volta meets Mastodon meets Baroness…” There’s a slightly more witchy influence here, which I’m diggin’. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ The best thing I can say about this album is that it has as much arpeggiated shredding as anyone could hope to expect from anyone (other than. Other than that, this is progressive power metal by the numbers. Worse, this isn’t even updated for a modern age. Everything from the mix to the songcraft makes this sound like an early Iced Earth album, not a post-Iced Earth album. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Grindcore leavened with equal parts Converge and Brujeria. The energy’s there, and it’s dark enough, but there’s something weirdly anonymized about the whole thing. Also, the drum triggers are so high in the mix as to be distracting, especially with Shane Brown’s penchant for fast syncopation. See the rest here
Holy crap: Danny Carey sat in premier Genesis tribute band The Musical Box the other night! Am I stoked that this clip is of the song “Can-Utility And The Coastliners”? Not exactly… but I’ll take what I can get.
(By the way, if I haven’t yet extolled the virtues of The Musical Box: they are absolutely amazing live. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ You’ll find haunting hybridizations here of Tool, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Karnivool, and Leprous… with plenty of hints of folk, indie, and ambient rock thrown in for good measure. The band is doubling down on emotionality here, focusing on sublimely excellent songcraft, but at the expense of any overt signs of self-indulgence. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is bouncy and fun, as any self-respecting Overkill album should be. At the same time, there’s something going on here, a slight tweak to the otherwise dependable formula that’s not entirely successful. I hope I’m very wrong about this, or reading into it too much, but the band’s sound borders on weird “Load+Reload”/”Countdown To Extinction”/”The Ritual” territory. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is a weird cross of “Psalm 69,” Suicidal, S.O.D., and a bunch of pre-mainstream releases from bands I haven’t taken seriously in at least 20 years. And that retro-hardcode vibe is somehow perfect for the band, and for the times we find ourselves in now. Adorbs. See the rest here
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