★★☆☆ So much material, so much to critique. First: every once in a while, a talented band of ambitious musicians put out an album that captures the essence of a live performance, instead of a carefully manicured studio artifact. Unfortunately, this is a miscalculation for Maiden, especially since they seem to be going dogmatically for a mid-80s live aesthetic. See the rest here
★★☆☆ There’s nothing overtly wrong with this album that I can put my finger on… but this entire collection of songs nevertheless sounds ambivalent, pro forma, tired. There’s plenty of moments of utter heaviness throughout the album, but there’s also more than one buildup or breakdown that fails to pay off. See the rest here
★★★☆ A darker, and yet more expansive turn from the usually uber-predictable kings of melodeath. Everyone in the band is in top form, of course, with special props to Dick Verbeuren and Sylvain Coudret on drums and rhythm guitars, respectively. As for the songsmithing, the departures from their norm are generally very welcome, and at times remind me of Dream Theater, Gojira, and other proggy bands (each at their own darkest). See the rest here
★★★☆ The first track is arguably the weakest song on this album. It’s a warmup, a tone setter. It’s also a good gatekeeper to the rest of the album: if you can’t stomach the first five minutes, you might miss all the really good parts of this deceptive shower. This is Ghost, returning to the form of their debut album: unabashedly fanboyish of the best parts of the 70s, joyously rockin’, and genuinely epic. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Enslaved continue making themselves comfortable in the micro-niche between classis black metal tropes and Opeth/Ihsahn-style intricacy. In fact, they wind up sounding a little too comfortable. The songs all go on a minute too long, in part because the extremes — the most energetic and the most subdued — are anything but. See the rest here
★★☆☆ The band’s sophomore album is a big improvement over their messy, gimmicky debut. The stink of derivativeness, while not entirely gone, is much less noticeable. What you have here instead is a cleaner slab of unsubtle aggression, clearly inspired by Meshuggah, Machine Head, and Slipknot. The vocals are screamier than before (which is a good thing), and the interesting riffage get downright nasty at times. See the rest here
★★☆☆ I’ve gotta tell you: this album starts out strong. The production is top-notch, and when the band cut loose, they’re heavy as fuck. And then they go and get all experimental. Some of the experiments pay off (the Rush-like “Criminal Conversations”, featuring In This Moment’s Maria Brink is the album’s high water mark), and some don’t (“Want It All”, “Revolución”). See the rest here
★★☆☆ Musically, this feels like Opeth playing Ghost covers. Which isn’t necessarily a band thing, in small doses; a full album’s worth overstays its welcome a wee bit. The real problem here lays in the gross grindy vocals, which are at best vaguely ignorable. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ There is a surprising and unwelcome degree of guitar wanking on this album. In similar but worse news, Dave Draiman is still singing into a microphone. Everything else on this album — the riffs, the musicianship, the songwriting, the overproduction — exists merely as a backdrop to these two guiding lights. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a very serviceable 35 minutes of grindcore. Solid riffs, good darkness. The songs do tend to belabor their respective points, which is a weird thing to say for such a short album. See the rest here
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