★★☆☆ The great news about the latest COC album is that their ever-sludge-as-fuck ethic is finally current, thanks almost entirely to the evolving scene around them (and not through any real diligence of their own). As a result, COC sounds more relevant than ever. Alas, there’s a whole lot of familiar self-indulgence on this album as well, not all of it successful or effective. See the rest here
★★★☆ While this is still very recognizably ETIDcore, they have somehow permuted the goofiness of “Ex Lives” for a more focused, surprising, and interesting sophistication on this album. None of the band’s aggression of missing; instead, they let in a little seawater for extra flavor. The result is an album that more or less works, and works hard, for its incendiary 31 minutes. See the rest here
☆☆☆☆ This is doggedly imperfect and retro death metal/grindcore, to the point of embarrassment. Seriously, the only allowable excuses for a roomful of disparate people thinking that releasing an album in this sad condition was acceptable would be:
★★☆☆ Very middle-of-the-road beerhall metal. It’s fun, but the whole album sounds like you’ve heard it all before… because you have. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ There are a couple of interesting ideas on here, but the relentless and tiresome wall-of-lo-fi production aesthetics that are so typical of black metal wind up getting in the way. See the rest here
★★★★ This energetically technical metal album has it all. Euro-style synth intros, faultless musicianship, a lower-than-thou tuning, tasty solos, not to mention a whirlwind tour of virtually every metal subgenre of relevance today. It’s hard to imagine someone being underwhelmed. Yet, they manage to consistently sound fresh and novel and interesting, even as they sprinkle their music with nods to Gojira, The Faceless, Attack! See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a lovely, gory blend of Entombed and “Scream Bloody Gore.” It does go on a bit monotonously, though… which is impressive for a 9-track, 30-minute album. See the rest here
☆☆☆☆ Believe it or not, I remember Mushroomhead being better than this. Avoid at all costs. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This album puts forth the difficult-to-dispute premise that Mastodon is slowly, steadily, smoking enough dope to transform themselves into Baroness. There’s some interesting musical direction on here, and the band’s performances are generally as good as they’ve ever been. But even on tracks like “High Road” and “Chimes At Midnight,” where you can still detect a glimmer of the swagger and bravado that really was the whole point of the band to begin with, everything feels like it was processed through a cheap King’s X or QOTSA filter. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is one of the most interesting things I’ve heard this year so far, somewhere between The Jesus Lizard, The Ocean, Filter, The Melvins, Zombi, Fantômas… or just hovering around The Black Keys, once those guys grow up and develop a serious problem with black tar heroin. This album is a controlled, snarling exploration, one that rewards repeated listenings even with its seemingly lo-fi pretensions. See the rest here
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