✦✧✧✧ This album of groove metal feels at least 15 years too late. Sure, the production is crisp, and there are some decent licks scattered about. And I do like the Kenny Wayne Shepard and Offspring covers. But even with all those wins, this album is chronically self-serious, dispassionate, and ultimately joyless. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Everything goes well until the vocals start; the wah-wah just seals the nu-metal-core deal. In the album’s defense, there are some meaty riffs undergirding the whole affair. Unfortunately, they’re deployed in the service of an outmoded and adolescent sensibility. What a waste. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Light The Torch (née Devil You Know) take a giant step toward metalcore mediocrity with this, ostensibly now just The Howard Jones Show. There’s almost no perceptible energy on this album whatsoever, and every single three-minute song is probably at least a minute too long. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ I’ll always have a love for Ministry, but I don’t hear a compelling reason on this album for them to come out of retirement. Very dated industrial, with the musicianship shoved back behind the thoroughly predictable sound bites from hated politicians. Sludgier than the Mike Scaccia-era Ministry that we loved so much. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ I swear to god, when this album started I thought at first that I’d popped on a Primus album. Unfortunately, that’s probably the listening high point of the debut album from this high-concept stoner band. I’m hardpressed to think of another supergroup as intent on casting its constituent pieces in a worse light. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ This is a different project than usual for Dream Theater’s drummer Mike Mangini: a “rock novel” that reimagines the narrative of Joseph Campbell’s “A Hero’s Journey,” an instrumental album save for “chapter” “intros” from voiceover actor Larry Davis. And it’s pretty much what you’d expect: utter wankery, more fit for a drum clinic than anything else. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ What the actual fuck with this album.
There are touches here (isolated riffs, really) that remind me of the Machine Head I thought I knew: precise, mean, effective metal. The vast bulk of this album unfortunately is something else: a confused and incoherent melange, liberally peppered with references to latter-day nu metal staples like Slipknot and Korn. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ This latest album from Geoff Tate’s post-Rÿche career has many of the overproduction flaws of “Empire,” without any of the quality songwriting, and a shadow of the musicianship. Also, and this needs to be said, the production makes it sound like Tate recorded this through a phone (a landline). This is actually not all bad news, as that lessens the impact when Tate’s singing goes flat. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ This sounds like a swarm of stoned goth bees. See the rest here
✦✧✧✧ Well, at least this one has guitars in it. Otherwise, this is one uninspiring bit of Cascadian black metal. See the rest here
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