FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
This past Friday marked the Toronto stop of this year’s Progressive Nation tour, the now-annual summer festival curated by and starring Dream Theater as headliners – basically their chance to take out some of their favourite bands on tour with them across North America playing outdoor amphitheaters.
Sean Palmerston reviews the recent Toronto stop of this year’s traveling Progressive Nation festival.
Another year, another Korpiklaani album. Depending on how you feel about these fun-loving Finns, they’re either showing tremendous resilience in putting out six albums in fewer than six years, or they’re continuing to inundate listeners with their repetitive music.
By Melissa Andrews Into Night’s Requiem Infernal is the latest offering from November’s Doom. I loved the band’s previous release The Novella Reservoir so…
For all the hype it received in 2007, Divine Heresy’s debut Bleed the Fifth was a major disappointment. Somewhere along the way, though, band leader Dino Cazares righted the ship, for the follow-up Bringer of Plagues turns out to be one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer.
Adrien Begrand reviews the new sophomore release by Dino Cazares’s new band Divine Heresy and, much to the surprise of many of us over here at Hellbound HQ, he digs it.
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.
Germany is famous for its beer drinking, festival loving rabid heavy metal fans. This is where Bay Area thrash giants Death Angel filmed their very first live DVD showcasing two energetic sets in which the band perform their most mosh-worthy classics.
Upon first listen, you might think this fifteen track offering is one of the greatest live albums of all time; it’s definitely one of the best to see release this year. This CD is what Death Angel is all about: heavy, thrashy, tight live playing that is highlighted by great guitar work.
Doom purists may be put off by some of the softer more melodic fare on here but I find Ahab’s diversity refreshing and adventurous in what can sometimes be a rather monochromatic genre. Like waves that swell and then recede, Ahab seems to have adopted a similar approach to their song craft and for the most part it works admirably.
Besides being metal junkies, we’re also science fiction geeks (if you’ve glanced at our Hellbound playlists, you might know this already). Turns out Melissa Auf der Maur (Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, MAdM) has a soft spot for sf as well, which her new multimedia project, Out of Our Minds makes blatantly clear. Auf der Maur appeared as a special guest at the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Montreal this past weekend, where she was promoting her new multimedia project, Out of Our Minds.
Laura Wiebe Taylor and Jonathan Smith discuss the Montreal premiere of Melissa Auf der Maur’s new project Out of Our Minds.
Across The Dark is the latest album from Finland’s Insomnium, and it is another entertaining showcase of the accessible and melodic death metal that the band does best.