First Listens With Two-Star Ratings
Bad Wolves — Disobey
✦✦✧✧ I’m always prepared for a metal supergroup to sound more or less like an amalgam of its constituent parts. What I wasn’t ready for is the idea of a supergroup sound like a blend of a bunch of other bands not at all related to its members. And yet what you get with Bad Wolves is an awkward fusion of Sepultura, The Acacia Strain, Vildhjarta, Tremonti, and Linkin Park.
Ghost — Prequelle
✦✦✧✧ This time around, Ghost are emulating The Scorps more than anyone else, which fits I guess; I don’t fault them for emerging from their latest personnel changeup with a little less Satanism, and sounding a little more stadium rock instead. The tunes are still catchy, the guitars still polished and appropriate, but all of this is harder to care that much about.
Derek Smalls — Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing)
✦✦✧✧ At long last, here is the first solo album from the loudest British metal band in history. TKTK
Sevendust — All I See Is War
✦✦✧✧ After years of defending Sevendust, this album from them is finally a little more Nickelbackish than I’d like to admit. The big change is the swapping out of actual riffs for DR5-crushed walls of tone, which lays bare some fairly pedestrian songwriting otherwise. At least Lajon Witherspoon continues to deliver world-class vocals.
The Armed — Only Love
Cancer Bats — The Spark That Moves
Primordial — Exile Among The Ruins
✦✦✧✧ Muddy and meandering, this is a surprisingly limp effort from a band known for energetic excellence. The songs here feel underedited, in terms of musical refinement, emotional resonance, or even just plain length. And the shame of it is that, even with those knocks, you can still get a sense of what might have been: a unique, surefooted, melancholic masterwork.
Kalmah — Palo
✦✦✧✧ COOOOOOKIEEEEEEEEEEE! All kidding aside, it was perhaps a tactical mistake for Kalmah to start their latest melodeath album with such a seemingly stereotypical beerhall tune, as that obscures the vitality and innovation found throughout the subsequent tracks. That said, the hits are also surrounded by a few duds and headscratchers.
