Mare Infinitum — Alien Monolith God
★☆☆☆ I kinda fell asleep there for a bit. I mean, I get that this is doomy as fuck, but the plodding is just so unwavering that it’s easy to feel your mind wander. See the rest here
First Listens With One-Star Ratings
The Monolith Deathcult — Bloodcvlts
★☆☆☆ This album reminds me very much of the transition that Malevolent Creation made from the sublime “Retribution” to the forgettable followup “Stillborn.” Similarly, many of the elements found on “Tetragrammaton” are present and account for on this new album, but this time around the combination just doesn’t work nearly as convincingly or compellingly enough. See the rest here
All That Remains — The Order Of Things
★☆☆☆ Occasional moment of headnodding drowned out in a sea of boring metalcorepop. ‘Nuff said. See the rest here
Marduk — Frontschwein
★☆☆☆ This is an hour of obstinately formulaic black metal, untroubled with concerns of pacing, dynamics, or even proper song endings. While not terrible, it’s likely that this album is for Marduk fans and apologists only. See the rest here
Periphery — Juggernaut: Alpha
★☆☆☆ This album would be a whole lot better if it showed any signs of cohesion aside from sudden transitions into new material. As such, it comes across as a lovingly engineered collection of B-sides and experiments that don’t always pay off. See the rest here
Napalm Death — Apex Predator – Easy Meat
★☆☆☆ With this album, Napalm Death have reasserted their role as the honey badgers of the metal world. Call it an improbable three-way head-on collision between punk, indusrtial, and grindcore. The resulting carnage works better than you’d think, especially at high volume. It’s impressive, really! At the same time, I’d be very very surprised if I ever willingly listened to this again. See the rest here
Lvcifyre — Sun Eater
★☆☆☆ Blech. I mean, for blackened death metal, it’s pretty good. But it’s so self-consciously de rigueur that the whole thing reeks of awful familiarity. See the rest here
A Breach Of Silence — The Darkest Road
★☆☆☆ I’m not sure whether to call this powercore (as the band’s marketing materials would want), or bro-metal or what, but it’s unfortunately very lackluster and derivative. See the rest here
Demon Hunter — Extremist
★☆☆☆ When Demon Hunter put their minds to it, they can really throw down some mean metalcore. The problem with this album is that the band seem much more inclined to devote themselves to schmaltzy power metal. See the rest here
Soulburn — The Suffocating Darkness
★☆☆☆ If you like sloppily-performed black metal with endlessly shifting tempos and more vocal reverb than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, this is the album for you! See the rest here
