avatar

Metal AllegianceMetal Allegiance

★☆☆☆ This album is a who’s who of metal, assembled to apparently churn out a lot of derivative and dated material. To me, this sounds not unlike Spin̈al Tap’s overproduced second album. To be clear, nothing here is overtly terrible in the David Draiman sense, and the musicianship is as good as you’d expect from the pedigree… but there should’ve been a higher bar set on this album than “Sound like another Roadrunner United release.”

avatar

Metal Kitty

I’ve gotta give Mike Portnoy props for doing this even remotely well, and for seeming to know a whole lot of other band’s tunes. Also, I’m totally into forcing bands who want to promote their new albums… into playing on preposterously shitty gear.