✦✦✦✧ The Long Island quartet’s third album is definitely the band’s best work yet: it’s much like its predecessor Crux, but tweaked and improved in almost every important way. The band’s trademark blend of bluesy hard rock and extreme metal sensibilities is very much intact here, but with more conventional and energizing choices in songwriting. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is the best that Cave In’s ever sounded. The band also feel as energetic and restless as ever. A runtime of 71 minutes is a lot to swallow, but it gives the band enough room to stretch out and entertain their various shadow selves. Listen for hints of Clutch, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, plus (and knowing the Katamari-like propensity of various Converge members to keep cross-pollinating and uplifting each other’s and other bands’ sounds) Mutoid Man, Old Man Gloom, and Quicksand. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ If you’ve never listened to Primus before… why the hell not? Also, don’t start here; you’re not ready.
Okay, now that those newbs are staring at the Frizzle Fry cover with alarm, I can tell y’all that this is the happiest I’ve been listening to Primus in a long time. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Without a doubt, the most entertaining album that Watain has ever released. The band have found great ways to generate that Norwegian black metal atmosphere, but within that sonic envelope they’ve managed to cram everything from musicianship to groove to hooks to… dare I say subtlety? There are surprises in virtually every minute of the album’s challenging length. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Oooh, you nasty! This band’s dedication to o.g. goregrind is so thorough and unflinching, it feels more like they heard Reek Of Putrefaction back around 1990, then holed themselves up in a cave for 30 years and have been evolving that sound ever since. If any part of you ever loved Cannibal Corpse or Massacre, this album will definitely make you smile. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is unpredictable, at times goofy as hell, at times only metal-adjacent, and at times a shredfest. One thing it is not is background music: this album is deeply fascinating. I don’t know if that’s always a good thing, but bless this band for throwing it all up on the wall and seeing what sticks. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is AAL at their heaviest in a very long time, if ever. Feel free to thank Misha Mansoor, whose production and arrangement assistance can be heard throughout the album. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This album delivers everything you might want from these exemplars of black metal’s second wave, but Dark Funeral do it in ways that sound anything other than trite or formulaic. This is a surprisingly expansive and experimental collection of songs. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Very tasty tech death from a bunch of Californian veterans (Alterbeast, Vale Of Pnath, Hatriot). The music shreds, it’s inventive, and it’s even got groove at times. And I’m glad that they kept the mean and median song length to six minutes; when it comes to metal this frantic, you’re still going to suffer blisters. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Crowbar are like well-oiled clockwork. This album delivers the heavy, sludgey goods that we require of the band. While nothing here stands out as career-defining, that’s like complaining that a particular lasagna isn’t the best you’ve ever had. Quit yer complaining. See the rest here
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