Exmortus — Necrophony
✦✦✧✧ Relentless neoclassical speed metal feels good, man! So what if playing Paganini or Tchaikovsky on your high-gain guitar is hardly innovative. It’s still sweet, bro! See the rest here
First Listens With Two-Star Ratings
The Acacia Strain — Step Into The Light
✦✦✧✧ This album has the same predilection for massive, plodding riffs, just like its companion piece Failure Will Follow. The difference is that, on this album, all but one track clocks in at under 3 minutes. The result is a collection of pieces that feel incomplete and fragmentary sketches. Perhaps this sort of thing will give metal new life on The Kids’ Social Media, but I find it harder to get into this particular material this particular way. See the rest here
Death Ray Vision — No Mercy From Electric Eyes
✦✦✧✧ This once-metalcore once-supergroup throws just enough metal into their blatantly hard rock formula on this album to make me pay attention here. (Do I detect hints of thrash and death metal?) That said, there’s a notable lack of variation that makes it difficult for me to keep my focus on the music even while it plays. See the rest here
Godflesh — Purge
✦✦✧✧ Keep in mind that when I say the track "LAND LORD" sounds like it was rejected for the Matrix soundtrack, I mean that with corrosive, fistpumping love. The problem with this industrial noisefest is one of consistency; when it works, it’s glorious, but when it misses, it feels like underdeveloped material. See the rest here
Therapy? — Hard Cold Fire
✦✦✧✧ A suitably venomous album from these chronically displeased Northern Irish alt-rock bastards (their 16th). As ever, this sounds like five different bands simultaneously, but a mashup of contemporaries like Killing Joke, XTC, pre-fame Nirvana, and The Jesus Lizard is as compelling as ever. One of their strongest efforts in a decade. See the rest here
Eleine — We Shall Remain
✦✦✧✧ Very well-crafted dark symphonic metal. Some of this feels a bit low-key and by-the-numbers, but the riffs are suitably heavy, and the scope feels nice and epic. Fans of Soilwork or Scar Symmetry should definitely check this out. See the rest here
U.D.O. — Touchdown
✦✦✧✧ Don’t let the on-brand weak album cover put you off too much: there’s some tasty rockin’ out here. Sure, Udo’s voice feels a little shaky at times. But many of the tracks here remind me of Accept, albeit with an updated production that makes this sound more rethrash than retread. See the rest here
Evile — The Unknown
✦✦✧✧ This sounds like a mellower Machine Head, circa 1993. Curiously, the album sounds a little more energetic in the back half. I don’t hate it. See the rest here
Dieth — To Hell and Back
✦✦✧✧ The good news: when David Ellefson starts a new band, you can be guaranteed that you’ll hear the bass in the mix. The bad news: this band is all over the frickin’ place. You’ll hear the influence of every group that David and the other members have been a part of (Megadeth, Soulfly, Access Denied, Decapitated, Entombed A.D., See the rest here
Avenged Sevenfold — Life Is But A Dream…
✦✦✧✧ This album’s all over the place, which is saying a lot for typically-already-batshit A7X. It’s a concept album. It’s nu metal. It’s pop. It shreds (but usually for no discernible reason). I dunno: it reminds me a lot of Destrage and Faith No More, only not in ways I actually enjoy? See the rest here
