Category: Reviews

  • Drudkh: Microcosmos

    Microcosmos is Drudkh’s first album for Season of Mist, but it carries no compromises for a potentially larger audience – Drudkh remains rewarding but also difficult. Their newest record is sophistication without veneer, a visceral and kaleidoscopic brew.

  • Impiety: Terroreign

    An unconventional way to combine black, death and thrash metal into one, Singapore’s Impiety deliver a merciless fist in the face with their latest release. Impiety prove that they are the self proclaimed ‘Asian Elite Satanic Majesty’ with their combative musical style.

  • Blue Coupe, Bouchard’s Outrageous Canadians @ This Ain’t Hollywood, Hamilton ON, August 22, 2009

    It was loud, it was sweaty and it was a hell of a rock and roll show from a band whose combined age is somewhere around 235. Three of the four may be of retirement age, but on this night the Blue Coupe rocked harder than most bands 1/3 of their age.

  • Nebula, The Entrance Band, Skull, Eaglefight @ The Casbah, Hamilton ON, August 19, 2009

    The band was set against a bright backing light placed on the stage and played amidst a good amount of swirling fog. While still fairly “psychedelic” in both appearance and sound, Nebula brought a rougher and more road rock edge to their live performance than their more ambient fellow Californians. The songs were shorter, and…

  • Ross The Boss: New Metal Leader

    I haven’t listened to Manowar since I was about fifteen but from the first listen, I remembered what a kick-ass guitarist Ross the Boss is. His razor-sharp NWOBHM-era riffs, especially on “Death and Glory” have that classic Judas Priest Defender of the Faith-sound, and the songs are generally punchy but tight.

  • Sinner: Judgement Day/The Nature of Evil/There Will Be Execution

    Over time, Sinner has evolved from a cheesy hard rock band into a more serious power metal band into a repository for ideas that would not fit on a Primal Fear album. Of the three albums considered here, Judgement Day marks the transition from the first to the second stage while the remaining two albums…

  • Bloody Panda: Summon

    Summon is the latest from New York sludge doom band Bloody Panda, and it is hardly easy-listening material even by metal standards. It’s an album that is largely about the atmosphere it creates, and it doesn’t waste any time in getting to it.

  • Black Lotus: Harvest of Seasons

    Now I know most of you will compare them to Dark Funeral, Vintersorg, Borknagar and the like, but Victoria BC’s Black Lotus is definitely one of Canada’s most surprising hidden gems

  • DevilDriver: Pray For Villains

    Whether you’re a supporter or detractor, you have to feel for Dez Fafara and the big ol’ target on his back. No matter what he does, how long he grows his centre-parted hair out, how many bootleg Black Flag shirts he’s photographed wearing, how much ill-placed tattoo ink he coats his neck and face with…

  • Classic Album Revisited: Sleep’s Holy Mountain

    Now, Sleep is perhaps best known for Dopesmoker, the posthumous reissue of their Jerusalem record, with a more stoner-friendly title. Whether you call it Jerusalem or Dopesmoker, the single-track, 52-minute platter is a noteworthy album. But Holy Mountain isn’t just an album, it’s a collection of SONGS, man!