Category: Reviews
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Diemonds – Diemonds
Diemonds follow up 2015’s Juno-nominated, High Times Magazine Doobie Award-winning Never Wanna Die with Diemonds, a powerful self-titled release. The record is masterfully produced, engineered, and mixed by the returning Eric Ratz, who has previously worked with Canadian heavyweights Monster Truck and The Cancer Bats. His efforts give this album a perfectly balanced sound that…
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Clutch – Book of Bad Decisions
One advantage of running your own label is that you don’t have anyone telling you what NOT to put on the album. Maybe that explains why Clutch’s 12th studio record ended up as a 15 track, 57-minute monstrosity. Not that there are any songs that really don’t belong on here… they just maybe could’ve trimmed…
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Infrared – Saviours
“Not dead which eternal lies / But with stranger aeons even death may die.” … The words of H.P. Lovecraft referring to his Cthulu Mythos, but they could so easily apply to thrash metal, with new bands inspired by the original artists, and indeed, the original artists themselves returning. Such a band is Infrared, who are not…
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Scorched – Ecliptic Butchery
If you haven’t heard of the death metal wizards of Scorched before, you’re going to want to turn your ear towards them as they are about to release one of the greatest death metal records of the last ten years. In just over a month, they’ll release their second full-length record entitled, Ecliptic Butchery, on…
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Ape Vermin – Sonic Monolith
Sonic Monolith is an impressive debut for a band that only formed last year. It’s a band that have a built in audience with their Sabbath-meets-Conan sludge metal. The album also has a concept, that of higher beings attempting to repopulate the galaxy with a new species of ape… as you do! Well, it could…
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Family Of The Year – Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime LP
It’s funny how, as similar to one another as every Family Of The Year release has been to date, Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime feels like a significant departure and/or move forward for the band. That Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime is the group’s first album for Reprise after enjoying a celebrated 2LP+1EP stretch at Nettwerk is irrelevant…
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Aepoch – Awakening Inception
Aepoch, the up-and-coming Canadian death metal group from Cambridge, Ontario have released a solid debut album to launch themselves to a place of recognition with some amazing riffs, composition, lyrics and flow. Brett MacIntosh, Kyle Edissi, Taylor Wroblewski and Greg Carvalho mix perfectly and their instruments lend very well to one another. The lyrics focus…
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The Skull – The Endless Road Turns Dark
When The Skull played Toronto on a cold winter’s night in January, they ran through Trouble’s self-titled in its entirety before tacking on a couple of originals at the end. Hey, after all, that 1990 record has been long out of print, and this outfit includes both Eric Wagner, the voice of Trouble, along with…
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Brant Bjork – Mankind Woman
The press release for this record was all talking about how this is Brant Bjork’s most political album yet, cuz apparently you gotta be political to sell records in this day and age. But when I listen to Mankind Woman, I don’t hear politics—it’s all about the grooves, maaaaan! This 11-track effort kicks off with…
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La Chinga – Beyond the Sky
The third album from this heavy rockin’ trio proves that rock ‘n roll hasn’t been priced out of Vancouver… yet. Their second effort for Small Stone Records is heading straight outta the 70’s, with 11 tracks clocking in at an even 45 minutes. “Nothing That I Can’t Do” starts off with a heavy boogie-rock riff…