We Came As Romans: Ready To Plant Seeds
We Came As Romans aren’t your Dad’s sheen of metal, as Bill Adams finds out when he interviews band guitarist Joshua Moore on the eve of their January 2010 tour of Ontario.
metalcore
Coalesce: OX EP
Following their post-hiatus full-length OX which was released this summer, the 7-track set is more of the same – a short collection of completely astounding music.
Hatebreed/Cannibal Corpse/Unearth/Born of Osiris/Hate Eternal @ Odeon, Saskatoon, SK, December 7, 2009
There’s never much to a Cannibal Corpse show, just five guys who never leave their marks, long, sweaty hair obscuring their faces, churning out that distinct death metal sound they’ve been doing for more than two decades. No frills whatsoever, just pure brutality, and it never fails to floor audiences.
Adrien Begrand recaps the recent Saskatoon stop of the current Hatebreed/Cannibal Corpse co-headline tour that is underway now in North America.
Trivium/Chimaira/Whitechapel @ Odeon, Saskatoon, SK, November 20, 2009
Trivium has talent up the wazoo. That’s never been in doubt. The problem with the Florida band is that Matt Heafy and his mates often try far too hard to impress, the perfect example being the bloated 2008 album Shogun, which threw everything at the wall, from thrash riffs, to hooky choruses, to tempo changes, to epic song structures, with very little sticking in the end. With this fall tour being one last go-round before the band takes a break to write and record their fifth album next year, it was interesting to see Trivium downplay the Shogun record as well as 2006’s The Crusade, instead focusing primarily on the breakthrough Ascendancy, as if they were openly conceding that it’s the best album.
Gaza: He Is Never Coming Back
Gaza’s He Is Never Coming Back is a tumultuous collection of powerful, almost too emotional songs that are heavy – not for simply being dudes from Salt Lake City who want to show who has the biggest balls on the block, but simply because they have something very powerful to day.
The Red Chord: Fed Through The Teeth Machine
From a musical standpoint, Fed Through The Teeth Machine is as strong as the Red Chord has ever sounded.
Adrien Begrand reviews the new album by Boston-area metal quartet The Red Chord.
Hatebreed: Interview With Jamey Jasta
He was the host of Headbangers Ball, he owns a few businesses, and he’s in two successful touring bands. On face value, one might think Jamey Jasta would have little to complain about, and even less angst to vent through hardcore music. But such criticism loses grounding when taking into consideration that he’s “turning negatives into positives,” as he puts it, by attempting to transfer difficult childhood experience, as well as recent tragedy, into song. Calling from Pittsburgh on the second-to-last night of the Decimation of the Nation tour (featuring Chimaira, Winds of Plague, Dying Fetus and Toxic Holocaust), Jamey shoots the shit with Hellbound’s Jay H. Gorania about Hatebreed’s new, self-titled release—easily the most diverse and dynamic output of the band’s career.
Incoming Cerebral Overdrive: Controverso
Controverso is the about to be released album from Incoming Cerebral Overdrive. This is the Italian band’s second full length album. The sound is mostly metalcore with prog rock and metal influences. Each song is heavy hitting and meant to get the listener moving.
In Flames/Killswitch Engage/Protest the Hero/Between the Buried and Me @ Prairieland, Saskatoon, SK, September 13, 2009
Despite the fact that co-headliner In Flames was playing last on this night, the unforgiving concrete floor was packed with bodies in the moments before Killswitch took the stage, and the joint practically exploded when the five dudes kicked into the tasteful melodic metalcore of “My Last Serenade”, Jones and his rather flamboyant counterpart, guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, leading the charge.
Adrien Begrand reviews the recent Saskatoon stop on the current In Flames/Killswitch Engage tour. Howard Jones, we hope you are feeling better now!
Burnt By The Sun: Heart Of Darkness
Burnt By The Sun has never been one to leave out groove and melody laced with absolutely fury and heaviness in an intelligent way and this continues on Heart of Darkness. As always the groove is driven by Dave Witte on drums, a man of many bands but never short on talent and ability to hold any style of music together. The drums sound huge and really pound out those heavy head banging riffs like Lexington Steele pounding a chick into submission.