★☆☆☆ This is an hour of obstinately formulaic black metal, untroubled with concerns of pacing, dynamics, or even proper song endings. While not terrible, it’s likely that this album is for Marduk fans and apologists only. See the rest here
★★★☆ This was a surprise, considering that almost half of this band is Aaron Turner, the second-hardest working man in metal, and judging from his recent efforts, a confirmed audio sociopath. But rather than an assault of antisocial noise, this is a dirty yet progressive slab of musical rage. It’s somewhere between Isis (natch), Old Man Gloom (natch), and The Jesus Lizard (huh?) See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a hit-or-miss affair. When it hits, the blend between melody and metal is perfectly balanced, with strong emotion in the former and real balls in the latter. When it misses, neither feel compelling, giving you something that sounds like an impersonation of melodeath. See the rest here
★★★☆ This album has all the converge-ish tropes that you’d expect from Call Of The Void. But the real reason to listen to “Ageless” is to check out the weirdly progressive diversions the band explore, evoking the noise-rock of Glassjaw and The Jesus Lizard along the way. See the rest here
★★★☆ Progressive to the point of making you say, “Um, WAT?” You know you’re in for a wild ride when an album treats djent as a basecamp for more adventurous territory. It’s unique and memorable and compelling and weirdly poppy, in all the ways that remind me of Leprous and Textures and Destrage, even though the actual sound of the music is closer to Meshuggah or TesseracT. See the rest here
★★☆☆ The final track on this album, “Mortui Mundi,” has some memorable songwriting… but otherwise, this is a solidly-not-bad black metal album by the numbers. Inoffensively, formulaicly correct. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is sufficiently dark and angry sludgecore… and yet, at the same time, it doesn’t entirely grab my attention with a heartfelt grip. It’s good as it plays, but lacks staying power after the music dies down. See the rest here
★★★☆ Everything lacking on Juggernaut: Alpha is fully evident here on Omega. It’s far more cohesive, even as it tilts from djent to late-70s prog and back. And, more importantly, it’s fucking heavy. Nice! See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This album would be a whole lot better if it showed any signs of cohesion aside from sudden transitions into new material. As such, it comes across as a lovingly engineered collection of B-sides and experiments that don’t always pay off. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ With this album, Napalm Death have reasserted their role as the honey badgers of the metal world. Call it an improbable three-way head-on collision between punk, indusrtial, and grindcore. The resulting carnage works better than you’d think, especially at high volume. It’s impressive, really! At the same time, I’d be very very surprised if I ever willingly listened to this again. See the rest here
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