✦✦✧✧ Obscura have teetered over into full-blown Cynic mode. Gone is the hitherto casual-at-best relationship the band had with song structure. Instead, “Diluvium” is an all-you-can-eat riff salad bar, with not much deference given to pacing or flow. The band are great at what they do, but this is one trying listen. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This is as over-the-top as anything Aborted have ever given us. It’s also all over the fucking map, which is problematic. The band is at their best when they hew closely to their technical grindcore wheelhouse, but there’s enough other stuff in here to dilute the former’s efficacy. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Predictability. Restraint. Understatement. These words just do not apply to Soreption, who manage to outdo themselves in terms of ridiculousness of tech death excess. I can’t say that their unbound bravara makes for a better album, but it sure is impressive. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Limp Bizkit meets RATM meets Butcher Babies meets Soulfly meets Body Count with just a hint of past-their-prime Ministry. In other words: a hot mess. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This 38-minute collection of 13 post-hardcore songs is like a punch to the face. Effective and energetic, well-paced, with just enough innovation and variability to avoid tedium (the Jesus-Lizard-tinged “Capsule” and Isis-like dirge of “Eulogy Template” are two of my favorite moments). See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ This album starts in full-on “Dude, is this vintage Carcass or Morbid Angel? No? Eh, I don’t give a shit. BRÜTALITY IN TEN CITIES!!!” mode. But after three tracks, a more inventive and progressive underbelly is revealed. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I’m always prepared for a metal supergroup to sound more or less like an amalgam of its constituent parts. What I wasn’t ready for is the idea of a supergroup sound like a blend of a bunch of other bands not at all related to its members. And yet what you get with Bad Wolves is an awkward fusion of Sepultura, The Acacia Strain, Vildhjarta, Tremonti, and Linkin Park. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ I don’t remember Dimmu ever being this polished and fangless. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is the btbamiest album that BTBAM has ever made. Musically, the band have never been in finer form. But in terms of songwriting, “Automata II” reverses the trend toward self-restraint, and gives over to pure self-indulgence. Whereas the first album broke away from both traditional prog metal and classic prog, this album more blatantly evokes Dream Theater and Boston, for good and for ill. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The ancient kings of Gothenburg are back, sounding as polished, virtuosic, and driving as ever. And yet, there’s not a lot hear we haven’t heard before. Even as the band nudges their formula here and there, the result is evocative of other melodeath staples (and more often than not, it’s evocative of other bands in post-heyday form; I’m looking at you, The Haunted and In Flames). See the rest here
This work by Metalligentsia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.