★☆☆☆ This is expertly done… I suppose. I mean, it’s got everything I’d expect from Bavarian power metal: galloping riffs, synth pads at all times, and anthemic and awkward vocals that are a bit too conspicuous in the mix. It’s all a little tired for me. But if you like this sort of thing, well, check this album out. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ I’m always impressed by how American the English sounds when spoken or sung by a Dutchperson, and that just lends authenticity to the evanescence of this whole album. This is very well-executed schlock. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ You kinda have to give a band props that sings in Swedish and starts off an album with a song titled “Dieselrök.” That said, this particular brand of industrial melodeath is just too noisey and awkward to really get into. The whole thing feels familiar, but clumsily so. Imagine going to a black market music store, and finding a Rammstein CD… only, it actually says Ramnstine. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ This undistorted album of material is pretty. Pretty boring. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ When the band is firing on all cylinders, they deliver a loud, discordant, and undeniable kick in the teeth. Sadly, the band only seems to fire on all cylinders when vocalist Frankie Palmeri is out of the room. Worse, he keeps showing up, sounding like Fred Durst post-Significant Other, when the fame got to his head, and he was reduced to self-parody. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ Give the people what they want, that’s what I always say. And that’s exactly what Massacre has done with their latest album. This is Grade A 100% Floridian death metal, straight out of Death’s “Scream Bloody Gore” or Malevolent Creation’s “Stillborn.” And the fact that I namedropped two lesser albums from important bands in the genre is your clue: if you’re going to deliver prototypical fare, at least have the decency to break some new ground. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ I imagine that this is what Monster Magnet or Queens Of The Stone Age would sound like if they ever full-on committed to being a sludge-metal band. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ I don’t always listen to sludge, but when I do, I at least require it to have more sonic depth than “By-Tor & The Snow Dog.” See the rest here
★☆☆☆ A very boring album, even by black metal’s standards of relentlessness. See the rest here
★☆☆☆ I give these guys some props for earnest ambition, taking a decidedly proggy approach to otherwise traditional black metal. But the end result is far from harmonious, and is never more sloppy than the awkward moments of spoken word in a very thick Italian accent (which reminds me a bit of the priest from the baptism scene in The Godfather). See the rest here
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