Primitive Man — Home Is Where The Hatred Is
★★★☆ Holy fuck is this heavy and dark and oh god the paaaiiiinnnnnnnn. See the rest here
Author Archives: arse
Keep Of Kalessin — Epistemology
★★☆☆ This is frustrating: this album simultaneously boasts shredding scorchers and shamefully derivative snorers. And the title track has elements of both. So you’ve got half a three-star album comingled with half of a one-star album. Discovering which tracks go where, I leave as an exercise for the reader. See the rest here
36 Crazyfists — Time and Trauma
★★★☆ This album rules! What a bizarre, unique, and hard to dismiss melange of metal… as much Glassjaw, CoC, King’s X, Entombed, and latter-era Pantera as it is a work of metalcore. But I fuckin’ dig it, because it’s got a freshness to the swagger. And most importantly, there’s an astonishing diversity to the tracks even while the band nail down a very specific sound. See the rest here
Marduk — Frontschwein
★☆☆☆ This is an hour of obstinately formulaic black metal, untroubled with concerns of pacing, dynamics, or even proper song endings. While not terrible, it’s likely that this album is for Marduk fans and apologists only. See the rest here
Sumac — The Deal
★★★☆ This was a surprise, considering that almost half of this band is Aaron Turner, the second-hardest working man in metal, and judging from his recent efforts, a confirmed audio sociopath. But rather than an assault of antisocial noise, this is a dirty yet progressive slab of musical rage. It’s somewhere between Isis (natch), Old Man Gloom (natch), and The Jesus Lizard (huh?) See the rest here
The Agonist — Eye Of Providence
★★☆☆ This is a hit-or-miss affair. When it hits, the blend between melody and metal is perfectly balanced, with strong emotion in the former and real balls in the latter. When it misses, neither feel compelling, giving you something that sounds like an impersonation of melodeath. See the rest here
Call of the Void — Ageless
★★★☆ This album has all the converge-ish tropes that you’d expect from Call Of The Void. But the real reason to listen to “Ageless” is to check out the weirdly progressive diversions the band explore, evoking the noise-rock of Glassjaw and The Jesus Lizard along the way. See the rest here
VOLA — Inmazes
★★★☆ Progressive to the point of making you say, “Um, WAT?” You know you’re in for a wild ride when an album treats djent as a basecamp for more adventurous territory. It’s unique and memorable and compelling and weirdly poppy, in all the ways that remind me of Leprous and Textures and Destrage, even though the actual sound of the music is closer to Meshuggah or TesseracT. See the rest here
Ascension — The Dead Of The World
★★☆☆ The final track on this album, “Mortui Mundi,” has some memorable songwriting… but otherwise, this is a solidly-not-bad black metal album by the numbers. Inoffensively, formulaicly correct. See the rest here
Xibalba — Tierra Y Libertad
★★☆☆ This is sufficiently dark and angry sludgecore… and yet, at the same time, it doesn’t entirely grab my attention with a heartfelt grip. It’s good as it plays, but lacks staying power after the music dies down. See the rest here
