Category: Reviews

Beneath The Massacre – Maree Noire

“Musically this album doesn’t deviate from the standard computer like sound of BTM past works. It has everything you would expect, ridiculously fast double kick, guitar licks like a robot was playing the 6 stringer and vocals guttural and abrasive enough to use on paint you need removed.” Hellbound’s Matt Lewis discusses Maree Noire, the…

September 10, 2010
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction – We Are Volsung

People reading this review will probably be split in two groups: the people who have no frackin’ clue who Zodiac Mindwarp is and the people who thought he died after 1988’s Tattooed Beat Messiah. There might be a couple of you who know that Zodiac has been (not so) quietly making new records and playing…

September 8, 2010
KYLESA – Spiral Shadow

But the album’s triumph for me, without question, is the majestic, heartfelt (hell, almost power-pop!) pageantry of “Don’t Look Back”; its two-note clarion-call intro causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up every time I listen– and the lyrics and vocals propel the song into sheer anthemic glory. Hellbound’s Kyle Harcott…

September 8, 2010
Melvins @ The Opera House, Toronto ON, September 1st, 2010

“The best part of the show outside of a really awesome 20-song setlist was watching drummers Coady Willis and Dale Crover play. I’d seen the band in Detroit last year and even though the duo has drummed together for almost four years, Willis seemed more confident on this stop. Crover was still in command, but…

September 7, 2010
Aborted/ Augury/ System Divide/ Horde of Worms @ Sneaky Dee’s, Toronto ON, August 28th 2010

“Only in death metal can you seriously announce that the next song is about the secret shadow-dwellers who live underground, have the room nod along seriously and then play a blisteringly brilliant song without a hint of irony. It’s damn fun to play mind-bogglingly intricate, complex music and still assert that the subject matter is…

September 3, 2010
Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini

Despite some jagged rhythms and an unexpected groove Axioma Ethica Odini flows consistently to an abrupt not-quite conclusion, so that finally I’m perplexed but also persuaded that I want to work my way through it all again until I fully understand.

September 3, 2010
The Pineapple Thief – Someone Here Is Missing

Straight up, Someone Here Is Missing is an excellent album that deserves to be heard by anyone conversant with Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, or Anathema.

September 3, 2010
Mares of Thrace/ Spitfist/ Drunk Hussy @ Rancho Relaxo, Toronto ON, August 14, 2010

Mares of Thrace played last on the bill, and brought the night to a thunderous close. I am profoundly interested in the aesthetics of constraint and the way art can be produced by limitation. Mares of Thrace plug directly into this particular obsession. Consisting only of vocals, baritone guitar and drums, this two-woman force of…

September 2, 2010
Kataklysm – Heaven’s Venom

(Heaven’s Venom shows) there are still some new ideas in this Canadian northern hyperblast machine that keeps them at the top of the death metal pack

September 2, 2010
Thou/ Moloch – Tears That Soak a Callous Heart split 12”

This record isn’t so much a split EP as it is a clash of the titans concerning those who revel and relish in the slow and painful.

August 31, 2010