★★☆☆ After a promising and surprisingly meaty opening track, this album quickly reveals an unevenness to its songs. A lot of the latter songs feature riffs and sections seemingly lifted from other European metal bands (I can hear Soilwork and Meshuggah in “Rusted Nail,” as just one example). In Flames occasionally succeed in their attempts here to expand their repertoire, with almost enough hits to justify the misses. See the rest here
★★★☆ While I’m no particular devotee of now-departed vocalist Peter Dolving, I do think that “The Dead Eye” was the greatest album the band ever released. That said, I also think that this new album is the best thing that The Haunted have done since. Sure, there are moments that will have more of a resemblance to Slayer and Lamb Of God more than to the band’s former work. See the rest here
★★★☆ This album caught me by surprise, in a way that reminds me of the feeling I’d had when I first heard Leprous’s 2011 masterwork “Bilateral.” This is prog metal with some next-level self-assurance, musicality, and originality. Trust me on this one. See the rest here
★★☆☆ As was the case with their previous album “Stalingrad,” Accept turn in a surprisingly potent and fresh collection of thrash tunes with their latest. At 58 minutes, however, the band do overstay their welcome a bit. See the rest here
★★★☆ It’s not often that a doom metal band show any sign of progressive leanings, but that’s definitely the case on this album. You definitely get the elegiac heft of a proper doom work, but at the same time you can hear an empowered directionality to the band’s wanderings, making Pallbearer sound more like Isis or Sleep than Crowbar. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Opeth’s love affair with all-things-vintage-prog continues unabated, and de rigeur Leslie-rotor organ pads, Mellotron, and warbly monophonic keys are all accounted for, and there’s at least one section mid-album that evokes a 12-string guitar sound. So that’s all fun. But aside from the time warp, the compositions are all a bit ho-hum and unspecial. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is the toughest review I’ve had to write all year. Yes, this is the debut album from what was ostensibly a marketing stunt, a J-Pop girl band fused Akira-style with a metal band. It shouldn’t be good, like the first DETHKLOK shouldn’t have been good. What to say, then, about the fact that this album features muscular riffs, sick solos, wall-to-wall ear candy, and two of my favorite breakdowns of 2014? See the rest here
★★★☆ This is step up from their previous album, “The Power Within,” largely in terms of composition. The blistering musicianship and polished production are as good as ever. There’s still an overall overfamiliarity to a good chunk of this music, like you’ve heard it before, in a way that doesn’t quite come across as homage. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is very meat-and-potatoes detuned metalcore by the numbers. That said, rather than aiming for some kind of genre innovation, the band seem quite content to generally double down on pumping the album full of energy. It makes for an effective (if oddly adorable) half hour of moshery. One notable exception: the triumphant “Son Of God, Son Of Man” manages to lift the album around it with this memorable crescendo of rage. See the rest here
☆☆☆☆ Okay, here’s the thing: there are moments on this album that manage to elevate the entire proceeding above the weird Slipknot-meets-Santana-meets-Biohazard-meets-Attack!-Attack! mess of the whole thing. But to find the diamonds, you’ve gotta deal with the rough, and songs like the first track are really, really rough (although I do kinda like the congas on some of these tracks… but I am Latino, so your mileage may vary on that one). See the rest here
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