Betraying The Martyrs — Phantom
★☆☆☆ This is a weird djent-metalcore hybrid that never meshes well together, and never manages to be all that memorable. The pulse is there, but it’s faint. See the rest here
Category: First Listens
He Is Legend — Heavy Fruit
★★★☆ This album lives in a sweet spot halfway between The Melvins and Alice In Chains, but the end result is better than you could expect from that kind of description. Full of dark swagger, it’s an unusual record, and one that rewards a careful listen. You might not bang your head, but you’ll certainly snarl along when you listen to it. See the rest here
Eluveitie — Origins
★★☆☆ An oddly compelling bit of beerhall folk metal, with a huge and awkwardly self-conscious emphasis on the band’s Helvetian roots. The Celtic fusion works pretty well, but overall the album still has a ho-hum pallor to it. See the rest here
Nachtmystium — The World We Left Behind
★☆☆☆ This comes across more as a collection of concepts or outtakes from the Assassins or Addicts albums, than a wholehearted effort in its own right. Tired, uninspired, and chronically overlong. And don’t get me started on the muddier-than-usual production, even for Nachtmystium. See the rest here
Entombed A.D. — Back To The Front
★★☆☆ This album is a challenge to get into, largely because of the weird production values. Now, I’m real big on the idea of getting away from the Toontrackification of metal, but tell me it doesn’t sound like these guitars were recorded through Pignose amps, and with the internal microphone on a Macbook Pro. See the rest here
Nightfell — The Living Ever Mourn
★☆☆☆ Amateurish doom sludge at best, and not very interesting to boot. I can tell that it’s lovingly made, for all its lo-fi pretentions, but beyond that it’s certainly not my cup of tea. See the rest here
Wovenwar — Wovenwar
★★☆☆ The debut album from a group of very talented veterans, making very anonymous clean-vocaled metalcore. See the rest here
The Atlas Moth — The Old Believer
★★☆☆ This album is equal parts Isis and A Perfect Circle. It’s a lovely blend, but as one might imagine given that kind of formula, the final result suffers from a lack of energy. See the rest here
Alestorm — Sunset on the Golden Age
★★★☆ Goddamn, but this album is fun. Our favorite Scottish pirate metal band do good on this one, with a perfect blend of frivolousness and serious riffs. It’s really hard note to smirk and imagine sloshing a frothy mug of beer to each tune. Even the Taio Cruz cover feels good to hear. See the rest here
Belphegor — Conjuing The Dead
★★★☆ My very first impression was that, while there’s nothing new or fancy here, that familiarity comes across as classic more than tired. Beneath the surface of this short and sweet deathy brutality, however, these guys are experimenting a little with mood and dynamics, in a way that reminds me of a more Euro version of The Black Dahlia Murder. See the rest here
