Torche — Restarter
★★☆☆ This is okay. I guess. 60-bpm sludge all the way. Whatever. See the rest here
First Listens With Two-Star Ratings
Abiotic — Casuistry
★★☆☆ A masterfully performed collection of technical death metal tunes, marred by wildly uneven pacing, and by how blatantly derivative it is throughout the whole album (lifting whole-cloth from Meshuggah, BTBAM, Intronaut, The Faceless, and a bevy of others). See the rest here
Therapy? — Disquiet
★★☆☆ This is a mixed bag of an album. On the one hand, the band’s production has never sounded so good. On the other hand, I can’t think of a time when they sounded more impotent. The net result is not unlike what you might get if XTC put out a Nirvana covers album. See the rest here
Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress
★★☆☆ This is a relatively uplifting dirge-suite, and as cocksure as anything GYBE have ever done. The problem is that there’s just not that much “there” there; of the album’s four tracks, two are atonal noisescapes. As a King Crimson-style calling card of a teaser release, this would be dandy, but as a standalone affair it leaves me wanting more. See the rest here
Liturgy — The Ark Work
★★☆☆ This album comes from an alternate reality wherein 70s prog rock blossomed forty years later than it did here. The resulting hodgepodge has as much in common with Camel, Bill Laswell, and Barber’s Adagio For Strings as it does with Emperor. It’s a fascinating listen, marred by a difficult production aesthetic and an over-reliance on the glacial crescendo. See the rest here
Disgrace — True Enemy
★★☆☆ This is a meaty blend of Ballou-esque sludge and SOIA/Biohazard-inspired urban thug-gression. There is something inescapably retro about the whole album, but it’s interesting and evocative in spite of that flavor. Sometimes the groove of the band is a little too… groovy for my tastes. That, and a handful of awkward and sloppy moments, hamstring the whole effort just enough to rob the band of a three-star first rating. See the rest here
Cancer Bats — Searching For Zero
★★☆☆ It takes this album a few tracks to find its feet, by eventually finds its voice as a pounding screamfest, somewhere between Kyuss and Converge, yet somehow without the real moxie of either. See the rest here
Black Sheep Wall — I’m Going To Kill Myself
★★☆☆ This is post-post-core, if that makes any sense… a savage screamfest deconstructed beyond all sense of flow, sense, or consideration of the listener. There’s a lot to admire here, but it’s also impossible to ignore that this hour of noise is as self-indulgent as it is cathartic. It’s worth a listen, but let’s never speak of this again. See the rest here
Keep Of Kalessin — Epistemology
★★☆☆ This is frustrating: this album simultaneously boasts shredding scorchers and shamefully derivative snorers. And the title track has elements of both. So you’ve got half a three-star album comingled with half of a one-star album. Discovering which tracks go where, I leave as an exercise for the reader. See the rest here
The Agonist — Eye Of Providence
★★☆☆ This is a hit-or-miss affair. When it hits, the blend between melody and metal is perfectly balanced, with strong emotion in the former and real balls in the latter. When it misses, neither feel compelling, giving you something that sounds like an impersonation of melodeath. See the rest here
