Author: Bill Adams
-
Royal Trux – White Stuff (vinyl LP)
Listening to White Stuff – Royal Trux‘ first album of new material since 2000’s Pound For Pound – I simply could not stop thinking about and drawing comparisons between it and Danny Boyle’s film T2 Trainspotting. In the film, all of the characters who survived the events which played out in Trainspotting had found life after…
-
Rancid – st (7″ EP)
At this stage of their career, it’s almost impossible to envision Rancid as anything other than the four-piece ska/punk powerhouse which has been responsible for songs like “Roots Radicals,” “Ruby Soho,” “Bloodclot,” “Fall Back Down” and “Last One To Die”; they are that punk-identified pop institution. At this point in their career, the band is…
-
Bauhaus – The Bela Session (12” EP)
In order to really appreciate just how radical Bauhaus was in the early stages of their career, one must recognize what they did seemingly as a matter of course – how different it was from everything else, and how boldly the band did it from day one. The group’s first release, the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”…
-
Cancer Bats – The Spark That Moves LP
When a band gets six albums deep into their career, history has illustrated that one of two things happens: either the group releases a career-defining album, or they release the worst shit shingle in their catalogue. For every British Steel, Iron Fist, Machine Head, Divine Intervention or Sound of White Noise, there are also albums…
-
City and Colour – Guide Me Back Home (3LP)
I must confess that, most regularly, live albums don’t thrill me. City and Colour albums do not often thrill me either, for that matter (long story short, while I was a big fan of Alexisonfire back in the day, I found the first two City and Colour albums staggeringly overwrought); I don’t know that I’d…
-
Jon Spencer – Spencer Sings The Hits LP
That the fidelity, equalization and overall sound found on a vinyl recording is unmatched by any other musical medium to date is a claim which has been proven several times over in many places by a great many people (including by several in this column, several times over too), and one of the great examples…
-
The Traveling Wilburys – Volume 1 (Picture Disc reissue LP)
The term “classic” gets thrown around a lot and, often, where the term isn’t actually deserved. A true, genuine-article classic is a thing that sets an enduring impression and standard to which others aspire, and/or would claim to be of a similar lineage; it’s an important portrait of a moment. The Traveling Wilburys’ first album…
-
NOi!SE – Mass Apathy 12″ single
It might not sound like the single most glowing endorsement of a single on the surface, but the first thing that NOi!SE‘s new, milled “Mass Apathy” single illustrates is that it’s never wise to underestimate a novelty, or write one off. The bullet casing silhouettes which encircle the exterior rim of this one-sided single (the…
-
Bill Adams’ 2018 in music
Every year, Hellbound writers submit their top albums of the year. They all get compiled into Hellbound’s Top Metal Albums of the year (coming soon). Top Albums of 2018 10. Limitations Artist: NEEDS Label: File Under Music After having run front-to-back with Limitations, listeners will almost definitely find that they won’t just be left…
-
Dad Brains – EP (7”)
Now over forty years since it first appeared, it was inevitable that punk rock was probably going to take on something that resembled a fatherly voice, somehow. How could it not? With Green Day having made concept records already and both Fat Mike Burkett and Mike Watt having produced punk rock opera albums, punk and…