Category: Reviews
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Sigh – Graveward
There are bands that we call progressive; bands that think outside the box. Then there are bands like Japan’s Sigh, which have never acknowledged that there was a box in the first place. I got into them with the album Imaginary Sonicscape (2001), an album that to this day still pushes the envelope of what…
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Rise Against + Will Potter – The Eco-Terrorist In Me 7”
At first, it might be easy for the format fetishist who is searching for the great “find” or “must-have” on Record Store Day to overlook Rise Against‘s contribution to the festivities. On the surface, it doesn’t really stand out at all; the band put a song from the album that they released last year (The…
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John Carpenter – Lost Themes
There can’t be many metal fans that don’t love the Panavision glory of John Carpenter’s films. The mere mention of the name of John Carpenter makes certain images jump into my mind… Snake Plissken walking through a darkened Manhattan converted into a prison, on an almost impossible quest, in Escape From New York. Vengeful lepers returning…
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Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
I actually wasn’t that big a fan of Royal Thunder’s debut, CVI, when I first heard it. I gave it a cursory listen, and quickly determined that they were a buncha Led Zeppelin wannabes playing Reverend Bizzare-length snoozers who threw in a female singer for added media attention. But then I saw them play live, on…
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Elderoth – Mystic
Elderoth are the brainchild of a certain Collin McGee, and his singular vision has produced a unique metal sound. Many years ago, the great Ritchie Blackmore said a wise thing (this was around the time of the release of the ground-breaking Rainbow Rising album): this was that so few guitarists had taken inspiration from Middle…
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Minsk – The Crash and the Draw
Y’know, I’m always a little leery when a 75-minute album comes up in my review queue. It takes a lot to capture my attention for such an extended period, and when you look at past precedent, well… Reign in Blood was 29 minutes long, Vol 4 was 43. Hell, Dopesmoker was 63 minutes, but that’s…
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Six of Swords – Polar Vortex EP
Six of Swords is a five-piece band from Toronto, Ontario. They put out an exciting demo in 2013 which was filled with the type of extreme music cuts that all brutal death metal fans would enjoy diving into. They have also been creating a buzz in the local scene, so it’s about time they release…
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Round Eye – s/t
Wow. A band grabbing listeners and shaking them by the head just to see the confused look on their faces isn’t a particularly common occurrence anymore (the Mothers Of Invention used to do it, Butthole Surfers were really good at it, Flaming Lips have had some great moments in the mindfuck field too), but no…
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Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
Fair warning: Crooked Doors, the second full-length from Atlanta’s Royal Thunder, contains at least three songs that will burn into your unconsciousness with the ease of candy-coated crack to haunt your waking and un-waking hours. I wish someone would have warned me, but there’s little time – it happens almost instantly. The first song, “Time…
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Scott Weiland and The Wildabouts – Blaster
Love him or hate him, no one can claim that Scott Weiland isn’t adaptable. Since first appearing on the alt-rock radar with Stone Temple Pilots in 1993, the singer has changed his artistic focus with the same kind of regularity that most people have in changing their socks; he rolled through a series of compositional…