Category: Reviews
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Rancid – …And Out Come The Wolves (5 x 7” vinyl set)
It sounds a little sensationalist to make this declaration but, of the albums which really sparked the punk revival of the 1990s (including – but certainly not limited to – Punk In Drublic by NOFX, Stranger Than Fiction by Bad Religion, Dookie by Green Day and Smash by the Offspring), it was Rancid who ran…
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Mad Max: Fury Road – a Hellbound movie review
I knew from seeing the trailers for Mad Max: Fury Road that it was going to be astonishing, but honestly unless you actually see this nitro-injected, mad slice of celluloid majesty in all its three-dimensional glory in the cinema, you are denying yourself two of the best hours of your life. It truly is that…
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Faith No More – Sol Invictus
The last time Faith No More released a new studio album (which was Album Of The Year in 1997, by the way), I was eighteen years old – it was literally half my lifetime ago. While it wasn’t the band’s best album (critics complained that the proliferation of side projects the band’s members were contributing…
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Periphery – Juggernaut: Alpha / Juggernaut: Omega
Those Periphery boys are at it again. The Maryland sextet brings their unique progressive style back with a new double album, Juggernaut:Alpha and Juggernaut:Omega. Although the two are meant to be companion pieces to one another, the styles and sounds differ drastically between these two entries. Juggernaut: Alpha offers up a far more accessible album…
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Fórn – The Departure of Consciousness
The best thing about Gilead Media is that label head Adam Bartlett doesn’t release material he doesn’t believe in. So naturally a certain level of quality is guaranteed. And The Departure of Consciousness, the debut from Fórn is top quality funeral doom. The 33 minutes of utter darkness found within is merciless in projecting a…
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Kings Destroy – self-titled
I’ve been a big Kings Destroy fan ever since I saw ’em at Days of the Doomed III in Milwaukee a couple years back. Their second album, A Time of Hunting, cracked my year-end Top 10 in 2013, and I have high hopes for their follow-up effort. The band brings the melodic doom, similar to…
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The Ditch and the Delta – We Rust EP
Over the past couple year’s one band in particular has been making a buzz in Salt Lake City and that band is Subrosa. The Ditch and the Delta is another such band from the same city that is up to the challenge of following in their footsteps. The band consists of Elliot Secrist (Guitar / Vocals),…
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Goatsnake – Black Age Blues
While the Facebook group “1 MILLION GOATSNAKE FANS PLEADING FOR A NEW ALBUM/TOUR” never got much more than a thousand members… they did get their wish with this, the first Goatsnake full-length in 15 years. Some might know them mainly as the band with that guy from Sunn O)))) and Southern Lord, but back at…
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Louise Distras – Dreams From The Factory Floor LP
The problem with a lot of what is earnestly being marketed as punk rock in the twenty-first century is that much of it is fundamentally flawed: it’s made the way it is because that’s what’s expected. The expectation is that punk songs will come equipped with a confrontational attitude stacked on top of a progression…
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Connoisseur – Stoner Justice
Pretty sure I reviewed this when it was just an EP—but I can’t seem to find that write-up anywhere on the site. Anyhoo, Connoisseur is a marijuana-themed crust-punk outfit from Oakland—or Smokeland, as they call it, and with song titles like “Circle of Heads,” “I Am the Weed” and “Full Blown Marijuana Addict,” you can…