Category: Reviews
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Esoctrilihum – Inhüma
The mysterious one-man black metal project from France known as Esoctrilihum, has released the third album in his career and his second full-length of 2018. There isn’t much known about the man behind this mysterious project, Asthâghul, save for the fact that he creates some of the most haunting, experimental and truly innovative black metal…
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Striker – Play to Win
Striker has spent the last decade forging their unique blend of Hard Rock and Metal. Play to Win is Striker’s newest release and exceeds every standard that they set with 2017’s award-winning self titled masterpiece. Each track is overflowing with riffs and hooks that captivate the listener. Each track stands strong enough on its own,…
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Transmaniacon – The Strange World of Suzie Pellet
This a concept album telling the Furiosa-esque tale of a street survivor named Suzie Pellet in a dystopian future world. The concept is the brainchild of Ian Miller, a very talented writer and artist; indeed, if he were to do this concept as a graphic novel he would be well able to both write and illustrate…
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Urge Overkill – Saturation LP (reissue)
Quick history lesson: By 1992, Urge Overkill had already established itself both in the fairly unforgiving Chicago music scene and on the North American college radio circuit with the help of albums like Americruiser and The Supersonic Storybook. Not only that, the band has cut a fairly striking and peerless image; unlike so many other…
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Akitso – Credo
Legendary Canadian black metal duo Akitsa have returned yet again with a brutal black metal record that has turned out to be their most accessible, consistent and crushing record to date. All six tracks are completely brutal in their own unique way leaving this plenty of replay value. Every aspect of this album is either…
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Skull Fist – Way of the Road
Quite possibly one of my most anticipated releases of the year, Skull Fist are set to release their third album Way Of The Road on October 26th, 2018 through Napalm Records. The album opens with “You Belong To Me,” a barn burner of a track that is sure to keep heads banging as the band…
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Book reviews by Steve Earles: History and war
‘Amiens 1918: Victory From Disaster’ by Gregory Blaxland Published by Pen & Sword Military One of the many great services Pen & Sword have done for the reading public is reprinting excellent long-out-of-print books which would either be lost to posterity or command criminally high prices on the second-hand market. Gregory Blaxland served with distinction…
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Iron Void – Excalibur
The tale of Arthur and his sword Excalibur is one of the great stories of heroism and in the world we live in now, we need such stories more than ever. Yet ‘Excalibur’ is a very human story, the characters have all the normal human virtues and vices, which is why the tale still resonates…
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Wild Moccasins – Look Together LP
In the context of New West Records’ stable of artists, Wild Moccasins stand out as a truly unique entity. Most of the other artists signed to the label have their roots in musical forms and structures linked clearly to rock instrumentation and styling, but Wild Moccasins don’t so much rebel against that paradigm as simply…
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Windhand – Eternal Return
Windhand has consistently been one of my favourite doom bands of the past few years. They’ve shown that “female-fronted doom” isn’t limited to cloaks, capes and songs about Satan while cranking out a string of pretty solid records. But when I heard the initial press describing Eternal Return as a “doom/grunge” album, namedropping the likes…