Author: Laura Wiebe
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The Unsemble – The Unsemble
By Bill Adams The complicated thing about instrumental albums is that they’re really easy to make (getting a band to just jam is never difficult), but making a great and memorable one is surprisingly difficult. The reason for that is simple; most rock bands operate within the pop songwriting paradigm which means a song should…
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Amon Amarth/Enslaved/Skeletonwitch @ Granada Theater, Lawrence KS, February 9, 2014
Review by William Seay Photos by Jackson May (Amon Amarth main, Enslaved) and Jake Dodge (Amon Amarth) So I’ve decided that Amon Amarth are, in their own way, the Manowar of death metal. They’ve stuck to their formula pretty much since 1998 and it has been paying off now for easily 10 years or more. Since…
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Truckfighters – Universe
By Gruesome Greg This Swedish trio is one of the hardest-working bands in stoner rock. Though it’s taken a little while longer than expected to get their fourth album out there, they’ve made up for it by touring and playing pretty much anywhere… except for Canada, that is. Universe gets right down to dishing out…
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Mutation – Error 500
By Bill Adams Iggy Pop was once quoted as saying that the sound The Stooges were aiming for in their early days was “something monolithic – something loud and annoying.” It worked of course; The Stooges made sounds which were loud and annoying and ended up laying the groundwork for an entire sub-genre of rock…
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Space Mushroom Fuzz – Burning the Almanac
By Gruesome Greg Quickie, 20-minute EP from this Boston-based heavy psych outfit—now a proper power trio, apparently. The space-rock theme remains readily apparent in the four song titles, as “The Cosmic Evolution” kicks things off with some heavy fuzz-rock riffage and equally-distorted vocals. “The Bio Zones” keeps the cosmic grooves going, a nice slow burner…
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Hawkwind – Spacehawks
By Gruesome Greg Now, I’ll admit to being a bit ambivalent about this album before even hearing a note of it. While the official word when this landed in my inbox was that the band was “rescheduling” its North America dates, by the time I got around to listening to Spacehawks, they’d already cancelled their…
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Black Flag – What The…
By BIll Adams With all the lawsuits, controversy and other such nonsense surrounding the name iconography of Black Flag bubbling up to the surface lately (the short version is that guitarist and SST Records owner Greg Ginn recently has tried to sue the members of FLAG, then he threw singer Ron Reyes out of his…
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Slough Feg – Digital Resistance
By Danielle Griscti Even if, like me, you’re not exactly an expert on SLOUGH FEG, I’m willing to bet your face will hurt by the end of the first track. “Lost and forgotten it’s his greatest fear, the lone obsolete engineer is here!” … ah, I thought, this *is* going to be as fun and…
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Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
By Matt Hinch A few things are required for assembling an Artificial Brain: extremely talented musicians, super-technical riffs, complicated song arrangements, Colin Marston production, terrifying extra-terrestrial battle artwork by Paulo Girardi, and a release on Profound Lore. Fitting all those pieces together results in this New York tech-death band and their debut full-length, Labyrinth Constellation.…
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Ministry – From Beer to Eternity
By Bill Adams For the last thirty-two years, Al Jourgensen and Ministry have been the purveyors of a fine form of subversive songwriting which has regularly pulled the rug out from under the genre they were working in at that moment. Be it electronic music or metal, the wit and subversive bent of the music…