✦✦✦✧ The band’s eponymous predecessor to this album had a few different sounds in its soup; while I’m not a betting man, I would not have wagered that Wrvth would focus this time around on their blackened-post-metal side instead of their deathcore roots, now a seemingly distant memory. I also would not have guessed that I’d like this album as much as I do. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ It’s immediately apparent that this is less a collection of bangers and more a sonic journey, likely intended to be consumed in undisturbed sequence. Any hopes for analogues to “Sober” or “Stinkfist” are bound to disappoint; while the tracks flirt with delivering the metal goods, this album is not mosh pit fodder. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ While The Police were falling apart in the mid 1980s, Stewart Copeland put increasing energy into scoring for film and television. One of his first products was a soundtrack for the TV show The Equalizer… an ultra digital, mood- and tone-heavy soundscape with elements at turns progressive, jazzy, and dark. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Djenty deathcore with a shiny (somewhat distractingly) digital gloss. Even more Vildhjarta-ish than Vildhjarta (which makes a kind of sense, seeing as HLB currently boasts two members of that other band). One thing’s for sure: this album is unformulaic, jarring (djarring), and above all else, dark. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ “Hey man, good to see you again! …Me? I don’t know… ‘How long I’ve been a Deadhead’? I dunno… But then, what is time anyway? I mean, it’s all just a construct, you know what I mean? A figment. Wow, man. Wow.” See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ See, this is how you spring from a retro sound and make it fresh and fun! This epic tech-inspired deathcore album evokes comparisons with Fleshgod Apocalypse or Anaal Nathrakh more dependably than Thy Art Is Murder or Whitechapel, and this is a good thing. Oddly, the tracks with guest appearances by Alissa White-Gluz and Angel Vivaldi don’t add much; fortunately, the rest of the material stands on its own. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ I hope you’re hungry, because this 38-minute album is one seriously dense riff salad… served shredded! (See what I did there?) No longer satisfied with evoking a bygone era of death metal, Tomb Mold have apparently set 1990 as a starting point for interesting and innovative composition which rivals some of the most avant-garde offerings from 30 years ago. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ If only all black metal was this interesting! Surprisingly shreddy and NWOBHM-tinged, while this is not quite as good as the band’s first album, “Outstrider” is still commendably inventive and easy to listen to. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ On this album, He Is Legend have ratcheted up both their cheese and their heaviness. Their long-documented similarities with Alice In Chains are less glaring now, crowded out by hints of Converge, Mutoid Man, and Entombed. The band continue to be both a guilty pleasure and an under-discovered gem. One of the most unique sounding albums of 2019, even if it sounds like it’s straight out of 2004. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Take half of Job For A Cowboy, add the bassist from Black Dahlia Murder, and tell them that their longest song has to be under 4 minutes long, and what do you go? Your face in a meat grinder, that’s what! See the rest here
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