✦✦✦✧ FGA take their neoclassical pretensions to ridiculous heights with this one; it says something that they were able to release a deluxe double-length edition, with soloed-orchestral versions of every song on the standard release (and it says something else that this bonus actually kinda stands up on its own, like a video game soundtrack). See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ KSE’s latest feels like an odd fusion of Meshuggah, pre-Black Album Metallica, and heaps of metalcore-by-the-numbers. And while I applaud the band for trying to be more progressive, their efforts manifest in largely arbitrary and distracting time signature changes. Still, if you already love KSE, you’re probably going to be just fine with all this. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Yep, this is definitely Voivod. I will also say: this is a really good length for a Voivod release; there’s enough Québécois madness on here to whet your whistle, but not so much to grow into tedium. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ Y’all know that I’ve loved Prong from back in the day (Headbanger’s Ball, holla). But this album gets off to a boring start, and has a hard time shaking off that misstep (even though the riffs get better as the album unspools). Then we get to the twin surprises of the album: the bizarre metalcorish “Do Nothing” and the purposefully detuned “Belief System”. See the rest here
✦✦✦✦ This followup to the 2011 prog masterclass “Dualism” finds the band doubling down on their Meshuggahness. This results in ridiculous heaviness when the band want to wield it, and next-level time signature/syncopation madness. The danger here is that their penchant for slippery rhythm goes so far as to make some sections virtually headbang-proof, the cleverness-for-clever’s-sake coming at the cost of effective emotional delivery. See the rest here
✦✦✦✦ This is a hard-hitting technodeath triumph, and sets a high bar for any other progressive metal in 2016. Unlike recent examples from other technodeath staples, this album does a better job in offering a (relatively) diverse musical palette, at times evoking Death, BTBAM, The Faceless, and Gorguts. Every song feels substantial without being overlong (even the 15-minute closer “Weltseele”). See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is glorious neoclassical speed metal, and a paean to cokehead Vikings everywhere. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ It’s not that the songs on this album are bad per se, but what you’ve got is 48 less-than-inspiring minutes of a hybrid of latter-day Alice In Chains, Godsmack, and Nickelback. Jason Suecof produced this, and you can definitely hear a bit of Trivium’s DNA in this, but the music here flirts with metal without truly committing to it. See the rest here
✦✦✧✧ A lo-fi adventure in screechy hostility with a marred execution. You can definitely hear the Unsane pedigree in this supergroup, but in a decidedly retro way. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is a pleasantly unusual and self-assured album that claims metalcore roots, but this music is as likely to remind you of Periphery or Symphony X or American Head Charge as it will of Killswitch Engage. In particular, the band do a masterful job of melding melodic sensibilities with wall-of-noise mayhem. See the rest here
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