First Listens With Three-Star Ratings

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Ola Englund — Master of the Universe

✦✦✦✧ This solo debut cements Ola Englund as the torchbearer for modern guitar wankery. Imagine a Shrapnel Records vanity album, only by way of Sweden instead of California. (Jason Becker: still alive, gods love him!) Fans of The Haunted expecting more of the same will be disappointed, but keep your eyes on the prize: this album taps into lots of different metal styles, so there’s something here for everyone, even if it isn’t super memorable or emotive.

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Children Of Bodom — Hexed

✦✦✦✧ The band is focusing anew on technical ability; they’ve been practicing, and it shows. Thusly armed, CoB’s usual treacly nonsense is interspersed between truly shreddy moments. Even without the bonus tracks, the album drags, but it’s still one of the best things the band have ever made.

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Whitechapel — The Valley

✦✦✦✧ This album finds Whitechapel farthest afield from the deathcore of their formative years, to excellent effect. Sure, the band is still tuned down and know their way around a breakdown, but that’s all leavened by a complexity and progressiveness that I wasn’t entirely sure they had in them. Destined to make it onto lots of best-of lists in December.

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Hannes Grossmann — Apophenia

✦✦✦✧ Grossmann’s third solo album starts out with its best track, the ten-minute blistering “Deep,” but has a hard time reaching back up to the same heights, despite guests Jeff Loomis, Marty Friedman, and Christian Muenzner. Even with that issue, the album is technically just about perfect. Crisp production, better-than-average pacing, and of course world-class musicianship make this one a must-listen.

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Numenorean — Adore

✦✦✦✧ This is modern black metal that I can get behind! Not content to splash around in the Deafheaven kiddie pool of Northwestern American post-metal, this band brings in just enough other elements of sustain momentum (and my interest). Hints of Isis, Behemoth, Gojira, and even Deftones make for a surprisingly lively bit of metalgaze.

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Periphery — Periphery IV: Hail Stan

✦✦✦✧ One of Periphery’s best albums to date. Of course, as is by now mandatory for this band, I need to give you my first impressions, song by song:

“Reptile”: absolutely masterful; a new high water mark for the band; Periphery’s Catch 33
“Blood Eagle”: a fun slice of Periphery when they’re feeling their most metal; all over the radio, though, so I’m probably gonna get over it real quick.

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Queensrÿche — The Verdict

✦✦✦✧ I’m shocked: not only is this the most not-bad Todd La Torre-era album the band have ever released, but it also finally halfway sells me on the very notion of a post-Empire Rÿche.  (Speaking of La Torre, he not only sings on this album, but he also plays drums on this album instead of Scott Rockenfield.

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Candlemass — The Door To Doom

✦✦✦✧ I can believable: 33 years after giving doom metal its name, Candlemass come back with an album every bit as menacing, gritty, and powerful as anything else in their catalog. Bringing back founding vocalist Johan Langquist is a winning touch, as is Tommy Iommi guest soloing on “Astorolus.” The album loses points for its buzzsaw production and luddite attitude to innovation, but these are meaningless quibbles in the face of a foregone classic.

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