✦✦✦✧ This is the btbamiest album that BTBAM has ever made. Musically, the band have never been in finer form. But in terms of songwriting, “Automata II” reverses the trend toward self-restraint, and gives over to pure self-indulgence. Whereas the first album broke away from both traditional prog metal and classic prog, this album more blatantly evokes Dream Theater and Boston, for good and for ill. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ The ancient kings of Gothenburg are back, sounding as polished, virtuosic, and driving as ever. And yet, there’s not a lot hear we haven’t heard before. Even as the band nudges their formula here and there, the result is evocative of other melodeath staples (and more often than not, it’s evocative of other bands in post-heyday form; I’m looking at you, The Haunted and In Flames). See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is as good as a stoner metal album can get in 2018 without being great. It’s fantastic that an early progenitor of the subgenre can still sound vigorous and vital, gently expanding the envelope even as they run deeper ruts into the old familiar paths. And yet, there’s something so damned familiar and been-there-done-that about the whole thing. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This death metal band from Colorado wear their Middle Eastern Egyptologist schtick on their sleeves in a big way. This seems far too obvious at first, too on the nose. But it grows on you fast: not only do Akhenaten show that there’s still unplumbed depths to the connection between Middle Eastern music modes and technical death metal, but there’s also something adorable about how committed they are to their sound. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ You’ll be forgiven if your first impression of this prog metal album is that it’s swerving all over the road, from Cynic to Gojira to Gorguts to Torrential Downpour. Just know that you’d be dismissing a unique, deft, and hardly assailable prog metal masterwork. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ A subtly interesting album, evincing a rethrashed form of progressive tech death album, with hints of Revocation, Black Dahlia Murder, Job For A Cowboy, and even Control Denied. Just when you think you know where it’s going, it throws a curveball. If there’s a downside here, it’s that it trades immediacy for memorability. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This feels like an updated blend of Discarnate, Sadus, and Deicide. So obviously I dig it. The album does feel like it’s 2 hours long, however. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is a subtler work from Ihsahn (which is funny, because the album starts out with this huge-ass synth patch that sounds anything but subtle). The epic power comes from the impeccable arrangements and production, featuring the lushest strings I’ve heard in metal in a long time. The songwriting is a bit “safer” than that on “Arktis,” but Ihsahn still delivers solid doubles throughout, if not actual home runs. See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ Epic technical death metal that utterly shreds in the moment, but somewhat fails to stick in one’s memory. Also, it goes on and on and on. Still, it’s blistering and super impressive. These guys definitely put in the work (there’s probably something like a quarter million notes on this album, no exaggeration)! See the rest here
✦✦✦✧ This is the Platonic ideal of a stoner metal album, from one of the O.G. progenitors of the genre. Is it groundbreaking? Not really. Is it technically shreddy? Hell no. Am I going to put this on heavy rotation this weekend? Already on it, son. See the rest here
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