Voivod — Post Society
✦✦✧✧ Yep, this is definitely Voivod. I will also say: this is a really good length for a Voivod release; there’s enough Québécois madness on here to whet your whistle, but not so much to grow into tedium. See the rest here
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Prong — X – No Absolutes
✦✦✧✧ Y’all know that I’ve loved Prong from back in the day (Headbanger’s Ball, holla). But this album gets off to a boring start, and has a hard time shaking off that misstep (even though the riffs get better as the album unspools). Then we get to the twin surprises of the album: the bizarre metalcorish “Do Nothing” and the purposefully detuned “Belief System”. See the rest here
UXO — UXO
✦✦✧✧ A lo-fi adventure in screechy hostility with a marred execution. You can definitely hear the Unsane pedigree in this supergroup, but in a decidedly retro way. See the rest here
Dream Theater — The Astonishing
✦✦✧✧ This feels like DT’s take on Pink Floyd – The Wall… but doesn’t work nearly as well. The band repeatedly make bad trades by subduing their collective virtuosity in exchange for limp and forgettable songwriting. Also, these songs have a bad habit of going from Shred to Meh’d and back again, undercutting any hope of momentum. See the rest here
Megadeth — Dystopia
✦✦✧✧ This isn’t the worst thing that Megadeth have done (that honor still stays with Super Collider). Also, the shredding here is satisfyingly sharp, and the production is crisp and heavy. I’ll remind you here that Chris Adler is playing drums on this, because otherwise you’d never know it from listening to the album. See the rest here
Intervals — The Shape Of Colour
This is great for what it is. What it is not is metal. There’s maybe 30 seconds of metallish stuff on this EP, and the rest is instrumental jazz with a drummer who’s got double kick drums, more Satrianiesque than ever. See the rest here
