Witch Mountain / Blood Ceremony / Castle @ Hard Luck Bar, Toronto ON, June 13th 2012
By Natalie Zed Every once in a while there is a concert line-up that makes you do a double take. The bands are so…
Reviews
High on Fire – The Art of Self-Defense
Though the original contained just six tracks, Southern Lord has beefed this edition up with a trio of demos and a Celtic Frost cover. But really, that’s just the icing on the cake (if you’re into vanilla frosting). These tunes stand alone without the added filler.
Danko Jones – Bring On The Mountain DVD
Bring On The Mountain is a great package, highly recommended to anyone who IS a Danko Jones fan, isn’t YET a Danko Jones fan, or any independent band that wants to learn how to do it right
Titans Eve – Life Apocalypse
What Titans Eve has managed to do with an album based on hardship is inject an air of triumph into their catchy delivery. The uplifting nature that saturates the album brings hope that no matter what we face in our lives, all our life apocalypses, the strength to rise above them is within us all.
Book review: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath by Joel McIver
Covering not just the Ozzy period of Sabbath, but also the times when Ozzy wasn’t there which produced marvelous music, the Dio years were outstanding, and the Tony Martin era produced some superb and sadly underrated music. A splendid read!
Hellbound invades Maryland Deathfest 2012, Part 2
“If you’re a fan of extreme metal and you live in North America, it’s likely that you have a strong impulse to attend the continent’s biggest annual festival: Maryland Deathfest. Actually attending the fest, however, isn’t always possible, especially if you live thousands of miles away.”
Part two of Jay H. Gorania’s recap of Maryland Deathfest 2012, with live photos by Albert Mansour.
Ancestors – In Dreams and Time
While their debut album was all over the place—in a bad way—Ancestors have a delivered a much more focused effort this time around that’s worthy of a few spins. Recommended for fans of Neurosis, Isis and the like; just don’t expect to hear much that those bands haven’t done before
Baroness – Yellow & Green
Yellow & Green by Baroness is arguably one of the richest and most diverse albums you are going to hear this year. It is certainly the most ambitious musical undertaking by Baizley and Co yet, but they manage to pull it off without a hitch. Production-wise it’s a little too retro for my taste, but otherwise this is a fantastic musical adventure. I’m hooked!
DTV Soundtrack
The soundtrack runs close to an hour and all the songs are previously unreleased. It is, by turns, invigorating, eviscerating and just good old nostalgic fun. The pulverizing metal component means all the dynamic, outlandish fluency of the action genre is represented.
Agalloch – Faustian Echoes
This new track sounds like an epic, though straight-forward, closing song in a full-length Agalloch album, not a stand alone experience. It’s an A-side that lacks a B-side.