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Orbit CultureDescent

✦✧✧✧ Oh sure, this is loud and heavy and whatnot. But this is an album for people who think brickwall compression is still too dynamic, to the point that a lot of the potential shredding here is smeared out into the rest of the postimpressionistic cacophony. This sounds like the worst parts of soundtracks for Christopher Nolan movies… with screaming.

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Limp BizkitStill Sucks

✦✧✧✧ What we once loved so much about Bizkit, back at the height of their powers, was how deftly they fused metal and rap, with equal deft contributions from all members of the band. This, the Jacksonville quintet’s sixth studio album, is something else: a hip-hop-centric collection of songs from all over the musical map, except there’s virtually no metal here at all.

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U.D.O.We Are One

✦✧✧✧ This is 74 minutes of power metal bolstered incessantly by a German armed forces orchestra. So of course it’s over the top epic at times, what with the horns and woodwinds and whatnot. But aside from that, the latest from Accept frontman Udo Dirkschneider is surprisingly limp. Also, this album cover looks like it belongs to the Now That’s What I Call Music series.