★★★☆ It’s easy and tempting to dismiss this album as nothing more than the lowest, sludgiest layer of The Ocean’s Pelagial… but Sky Burial repays the patient listener with a deft and nuanced exploration of heaviness. While it’s easy to tune out at times, the second half of the album has a few tasty surprises. See the rest here
★★★☆ “Murderlust” is an earnest and driving piece of modern thrash, which manages to innovate even as it holds fast to well-worn metal traditions. This album totally reminds me of The Haunted’s “The Dead Eye” with a dash of Entombed’s “Wolverine Blues.” (Admittedly, there are fans of either band who look down their noses at those two particular albums, but not this guy.) See the rest here
★★★☆ Don’t let the sophomoric title or cover art fool you. Instead of a bad COC knockoff, this is basically a Massachusetts metalcore supergroup (with ex-members of Shadows Fall and KSE), giving themselves free license to use metalcore as a base camp for all their frenetic, frantic excursions into many other metal genres. See the rest here
★★★☆ Definitely taking more than one page from the Black Dahlia Murder playbook, this melodic death metal manages to sound just different enough from the rest of the pack to feel interesting. This is a grower (and not an easy one at that), and not entirely as original as BDM. But IKE does have something going for it that BDM does not: easy accessibility to their latest fucking album online, that’s what. See the rest here
★★★☆ Three stars? Have I lost my mind?!
So here’s the thing: I generally douse Gwar in a shower of wound-stinging salt for being a too-long-in-the-tooth art project band. Their Scatterbrain-meets-Jello-Biafra vocals and spacey high-concept foolishness definitely inspire snobbery. But behind that, the band is just wailin’ all over the place on this album, like a more punk version of Slipknot with their tongues very firmly in their cheeks (or someone else’s). See the rest here
★★★☆ An excellent return to form, with a sound that places the band somewhere between “Descanting…” and “Heartwork.” It’s far more mature than either, and mostly devoid of the crassly overt commercialilsm of the latter. Despite the rumors of trouble during production, “Surgical Steel” does not disappoint. Also, I guarantee that you’ll be wanting to learn this chant: “6! See the rest here
★★★☆ A low three-stars for this album (which is still higher praise than I’d give any other Gorguts album). The technically excellent material does repeatedly suffer from its bridge-too-far scope demands. That said, “Enemies Of Compassion” is perhaps the most brutal 7 minutes of metal I’ve heard all year. See the rest here
★★★☆ This is another blistering Kurt Ballou production, so you know it’s going to be an aural onslaught. And yet, there is a deftness and pacing to this album. I wouldn’t call it subtle, but it’s still a cruel delight from start to finish. See the rest here
★★★☆ Inevitably comparable to Intronaut’s “Habitual Levitations”, the former exceeds the latter in terms of production and scope, but falls short in terms of memorability and rage. “Asymmetry” is a must-listen for any prog fan, but does it warrant a re-listen? Either way, I’d totally love to put both albums head-to-head in an epic battle for nerdy supremacy. See the rest here
★★★☆ A sprawling, epic piece of doooooooooom. I’m depressed. Hold me. See the rest here
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