Category: Reviews
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The Melvins – Hold It In (Vinyl Vlog)
It might sound a little deliberately contrary but, in the current “more is more” music industry landscape (where more variant releases of albums on more formats with different tracklists are the norm), the biggest, longest variant of an album isn’t always the best one. The vinyl incarnation of Hold It In – The Melvins’ twenty-fourth…
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Marduk – Frontschwein
There’s such a thing as a regular Marduk album. Regular Marduk albums fit the template for the frosty second wave of black metal and are usually pretty good. There are twelve previous albums and, even if guitarist Morgan is the sole remaining original member, the band has a sound and a developed quality. They’ve remained…
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Desolate Shrine – The Heart of the Netherword
So apparently the folks at Dark Descent Records (home of THANTIFAXATH, HORRENDOUS, & LVCIFYRE, among others) don’t want to give hapless metal scribes even a brief respite. Feels like we’re barely out of year-end review season (and into the new year) and they’ve already dropped yet another hands-down triumph. Hailing from the Nordic climbs of…
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ENSLAVED – In Times
First Impressions… Well, I couldn’t resist, I ate up the official stream made available by Nuclear Blast right away. As a longtime fan of Norway’s ENSLAVED I had been following the news of this release closely, so it was nice to get a reward immediately; the first track, “Thurisaz Dreaming,” had been partially released as…
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Callisto – Secret Youth
Sincere and heartfelt, this is not an album for the casual listener; rather it is for the music lover who is prepared to give the music time to plant roots in the mind and appreciate all its nuances. While Callisto are good song-writers, I found this album works best listened to as an organic whole. It…
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Cowards – Rise to Infamy
France is pretty much the last place that comes to mind when you think of sludge metal. But that’s not to say Paris doesn’t have its share of unrest—they still shoot cartoonists there, after all. And let’s not forget that Louisiana was once a French colony… although I’m pretty sure that Mike IX and Kirk…
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Visigoth – The Revenant King
I’m probably the last person I’d expect to see reviewing an album by a band such as Salt Lake City’s Visigoth. I’m usually the coward running the other way when “power metal” is mentioned but something about these traditionalists and their debut The Revenant King threw a bolas around my ankles and dragged me into…
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Hawk Eyes – Everything Is Fine
I’ve reviewed a lot of albums in my time, and inevitably so many of them have to include lines like ‘sounds like such and such a band’; it’s inevitable. But in the case of Hawk Eyes, I’m happy to report they sound like themselves, which is as it should be. Musically, the band are adroit,…
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Atten Ash – The Hourglass
Three-piece NC atmospheric death doom combo ATTEN ASH bear deep roots in the scene, despite only becoming an entity in 2011; Barre Gambling & Archie Hunt cut their teeth in heavyweight acts DAYLIGHT DIES and LEGION OF THE FALLEN before joining forces with founder James Greene. This collective muscle memory helped to carry an already…
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American Heritage – Prolapse
Another album that managed to slip through 2014 unreviewed by myself is Prolapse by American Heritage. Being as busy as I am is both a blessing and a curse. In this case more of a curse as I could have been listening to this bruiser for months. And on an even more distressing note, guitarist/vocalist…