★★☆☆ The new supergroup featuring Doug Pinnick and George Lynch has got perhaps the most faultless production I’ve heard in months. Beyond that, there is no way that anyone unfamiliar with the album is going to hear this as anything other than an amazing new King’s X album. That of course is faint praise, as there’s no escaping a right-down-the-middle radio-friendly blandness that haunts the hard rock pretentions of the first half of the album. See the rest here
★★☆☆ This is some good old-fashioned power metal, so unabashedly playing to type that it’s difficult not to admire the band’s singlemindedness. But with the only innovation (arguably) being a more modern sound, it’s really difficult to hang on to any of the material, which comes across as forgettable, even as you listen to it. See the rest here
★★☆☆ A curious and good blend of power and thrash metal from Savage Messiah. There’s some tasty, tasty guitarwork on this album, strong enough to elicit a warm nodding of heads, but the rest of the performances do feel a bit phoned-in. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Energetic and nasty, but also clean. Surprisingly clean. I hear the angry, but it also feels a little cautious in its delivery. Also, these tunes don’t have a long shelf life in my memory. The album is a bit like a lesser hot sauce: it packs a punch, but its flavor doesn’t stick with me. See the rest here
★★☆☆ So much of this album sounds like a conscious expansion (best case) or plagiarizing (worst case) of Queens Of The Stone Age, Radiohead, Deftones, with recognizable motifs extruded rustily through an art-house mesh. But rather than being annoying or easy (as if anyone could call Boris “derivative”), these touchstones of listenability help to orient you throughout the course of the album. See the rest here
★★☆☆ There’s a lot going for this bizarre math-/prog-/post-metal opus. It’s got ambition and precision and energy when it wants to use it, and once again here’s a band that outmastodons Mastodon. And in particular, the two “Choose Again” tracks that more or less bookend the album are worth a few listens. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Catchy aggressive sludge (with a smidge of noisecore thrown in for good measure), but the utter sameness and duration of the songs make this a hard album to get into. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Yep, this is a Priest album, alright. It’s fun, though. Not super special or an instant classic, but I’m not facepalming either. (Although, does it sound to you like Rob’s pipes are a little tired, or is that just me?) Okay then! See the rest here
★★☆☆ The great news about the latest COC album is that their ever-sludge-as-fuck ethic is finally current, thanks almost entirely to the evolving scene around them (and not through any real diligence of their own). As a result, COC sounds more relevant than ever. Alas, there’s a whole lot of familiar self-indulgence on this album as well, not all of it successful or effective. See the rest here
★★☆☆ Very middle-of-the-road beerhall metal. It’s fun, but the whole album sounds like you’ve heard it all before… because you have. See the rest here
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