Bad Wolves — N.A.T.I.O.N.
✦✦✧✧ For their second album, Bad Wolves took their SiriusXM-friendly groove metal formula and… made it less interesting? See the rest here
First Listens With Two-Star Ratings
BABYMETAL — METAL GALAXY
✦✦✧✧ It’s ironic that an album that starts with a track titled “FUTURE METAL” trades so heavily in clichéd tropes. The metal gems on here are fewer and farther between the increased reliance on J-Pop, and honestly most of this album sounds like the soundtrack to Beat Saber… but don’t sleep on truly interesting and fun tracks like “Elevator Girl” or “Night Night Burn!” See the rest here
Norma Jean — All Hail
✦✦✧✧ All of the ferocity you’ve come to expect from these glitchy metalcore legends. What makes this album interesting is how the band simultaneously pummel the listener and hold their fire for better pacing throughout the album. The album’s back half is as compelling and brutal as its front half, not an easy feat for anyone in this genre. See the rest here
Singularity — Place Of Chains
✦✦✧✧ Symphonic tech death that feels like a cross between The Faceless and Fleshgod Apocalypse. When it’s on (“Sisyphean Cycle”, “Consume And Assume”, “Desmoterion”, it’s fucking on. Otherwise, the music here does trend toward the derivative or at least very familiar. That’s pretty much the worst criticism I can level against this otherwise epic and impressive shredfest of an album. See the rest here
1349 — The Infernal Pathway
✦✦✧✧ Speed metal and black metal, two subgenres that don’t often get successfully blended together, find an uneasy alliance in 1349’s latest album. Or rather, this happens in different ways throughout the album, which feels like at least three slightly different EPs, bookended by a few recurring “Tunnel Of Set” interludes, themselves a continuation of a trick first heard on 1349’s Demonoir album. See the rest here
DragonForce — Extreme Power Metal
✦✦✧✧ Gods love DragonForce, who continue to hold down the fort for power metal with unwavering commitment and enthusiasm (hell, they put it in this album’s title!). As always, the latest DragonForce album just feels so damned good. The shredding is exactly as it should be: as ridiculously adroit as it is over the top. See the rest here
Alter Bridge — Walk The Sky
✦✦✧✧ Unsurprisingly polished rockmetal from a band that is ostensibly Creed with a different singer. (No flippant dismissal intended by that statement; you merely have a right to expect a certain amount of polish from these guys.) The biggest problem here, then, is that all that gloss is in service of material that is uninspiring. See the rest here
Blut Aus Nord — Hallucinogen
✦✦✧✧ BAN do a phenomenal job here of blending stereotypical Norwegian black and experimental American post-black metals (which is ironic since they’re French), and seem to have fun playing with one’s expectations throughout their new material. Special shout-out to Vindsval, whose vocals are particularly atmospheric and (from a musical standpoint) almost worthless otherwise. See the rest here
Life Of Agony — The Sound Of Scars
✦✦✧✧ A tight sampling of LOA’s multiple moods, moving seamlessly from groovy hard rock to more experimental forays. This is more their mellowest record to date, but there’s still a streetwise menace to be felt throughout. If the result sometimes sounds like Alice In Chains as often as it sounds like Nothingface (or older LOA), that feels like an easy price to pay. See the rest here
The Devil Wears Prada — The Act
✦✦✧✧ TDWP take their industrial/glitchy djentcore style into a more accessible direction. But this new sound is only interesting in a heady, shoegazer way, with ruinous pacing issues and very little emotional heft behind any of the album’s tracks. Maybe this will make TDWP more of a household name; if their aim is to be more like Asking Alexandria or Breaking Benjamin, this may be the way forward, and I wish them luck. See the rest here
