★★☆☆ The band’s sophomore album is a big improvement over their messy, gimmicky debut. The stink of derivativeness, while not entirely gone, is much less noticeable. What you have here instead is a cleaner slab of unsubtle aggression, clearly inspired by Meshuggah, Machine Head, and Slipknot. The vocals are screamier than before (which is a good thing), and the interesting riffage get downright nasty at times. See the rest here
★★☆☆ I’ve gotta tell you: this album starts out strong. The production is top-notch, and when the band cut loose, they’re heavy as fuck. And then they go and get all experimental. Some of the experiments pay off (the Rush-like “Criminal Conversations”, featuring In This Moment’s Maria Brink is the album’s high water mark), and some don’t (“Want It All”, “Revolución”). See the rest here
★★☆☆ Musically, this feels like Opeth playing Ghost covers. Which isn’t necessarily a band thing, in small doses; a full album’s worth overstays its welcome a wee bit. The real problem here lays in the gross grindy vocals, which are at best vaguely ignorable. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is a very serviceable 35 minutes of grindcore. Solid riffs, good darkness. The songs do tend to belabor their respective points, which is a weird thing to say for such a short album. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Seeing as there’s a new Terminator movie in the theaters, it must be time for a new Fear Factory album. So what if there’s not a lot of evolution to the band’s sound; they got that out of the way with “Demanufacture.” And there are a few moments on here that inject new energy into the proceedings. See the rest here
★★☆☆ No surprise here: the best parts of this album are the parts that don’t have Max Cavalera’s heavy hand all over them. There are some gusts of freshness in here, but they are quickly smothered by your usual brasilishit. But hey, if that’s your cup of tea, have another swig. See the rest here
★★☆☆ When this album succeeds, it does so by distancing itself from its obvious bedroom recording djentisms. In this regard, the latter half of the album outdistances the former, which can’t help but feel like a collection of TesseracT B-sides. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Symphony X continue their lifelong reappropriation of prog metal tropes, but whereas they pulled it off with aplomb on their previous album “Iconoclast,” this time around the results inspire less forgiveness. Maybe part of the problem is that the album starts out with a truly unconvincing Overture. Or maybe it’s the limp ballad-by-the-numbers “Without You.” See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is equal parts Isis, A Perfect Circle, Eleven, Silversun Pickups, and Pink Floyd. And if that’s hard to grok, that’s okay — that’s part of the listening experience, too. The album’s shoegazer tendencies are its Achilles heel, and I wouldn’t blame you for skipping the last third of it, but otherwise this is a tantalizing breath of fresh air. See the rest here
★★☆☆ While the idea of these grosscore stalwarts trying to add a touch of symphonic grandiosity to their normal fare seems great on paper, more often than not the results fall short of anything compelling. The band do much better on this album when they return to form, and on those occasions what you get is exactly what the band do best. See the rest here
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