Hellyeah — Blood For Blood
☆☆☆☆ Jesus. When did Hellyeah turn into Static X? See the rest here
Category: First Listens
Tiger Flowers — Dead Hymns
★☆☆☆ Well, I’ll give them this much: “Dead Hymns” sure is unfriendly. Tiger Flowers sound like big fans of Dillinger and Glassjaw. Unfortunately, this album (while undeniably aggressive) is not nearly as interesting as anything I can expect from either of those other bands. See the rest here
Whitechapel — Our Endless War
★★☆☆ On the one hand, this is a step up for the band from their eponymous 2012 release. The songwriting is an evolution from their deathcore-by-the-numbers approach, at times evoking a Lamb Of God or even a latter-era Carcass. On the other hand, the band do still suffer a lot from large swaths of unmemorable flexing. See the rest here
Eyehategod — Eyehategod
★☆☆☆ If there’s any confusion as to why I’m giving the latest Eyehategod such a low score, ask yourself this: how highly would you think of this album if it was the debut release of some band not named Eyehategod? Ya wouldn’t. See the rest here
Son Of Aurelius — Under a Western Sun
★★☆☆ On the one hand, this is a hefty platter of wall-to-wall guitar wankery, with a lot of riffs sounding like they came from the BTBAM playbook. On the other hand, the tracks are so meandering as to make it really difficult to latch on to or remember. A fun enough listen, but not one that’s going to stick with you. See the rest here
Crowbar — Symmetry in Black
★★★☆ This is in many ways just another Crowbar album… but at the same time it’s cleaner, darker, heavier, sludgier, and more expansive. There’s a later-album vibe to a lot of the material here (obvs), but all the same this whole album is a smack in the ass (and you know I mean that in the nicest way possible). See the rest here
Nux Vomica — Nux Vomica
★★☆☆ Take any Kurt Ballou-produced crust band, cross it with the slow dirge of an Isis or Murmur, and you’ll get this album. And you know, giving the former’s punch-in-the-nuts ethic enough of the latter’s room to breathe and meander works more often than not. When it doesn’t work, it’s just boring… but there’s still enough here to commend a listen. See the rest here
Anti-Mortem — New Southern
★★☆☆ If I’m being unkind, I’d call this album a more boring Hellyeah. But you know what? This album is also fucking fun. You will nod your head, despite yourself. So there’s that. See the rest here
Insense — De: Evolution
★☆☆☆ I wanted to like this a whole lot more than I actually did. It definitely wields an unorthodoxy, approaching many well-worn tropes without using them. And that’d be a lot more commendable if the music had hooks or melodies or other qualities to go along with their unusualness. Still, if you’re a fan of Misery Signals or Devin Townsend, you might enjoy it. See the rest here
Young And In The Way — When Life Comes To Death
★★☆☆ Doomy and dirgy and noisy as you want. It’d be a little unfair to dismiss YAITW as another Converge clone, as they do try to add some twists through this album…. but the comparison is impossible to avoid nonetheless. See the rest here
