Category: Reviews
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Against the Grain – Cheated Death
Detroit Rock City road warriors Against the Grain are back with their fourth full-length album, and they’ll surely be coming to your town to help you party it down in the very near future. But in the meantime, we’ve got these 12 tracks of Motor City speed rock to tide us over, 40 minutes at…
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Dan Rico – Flesh & Bone b/w Gold Volvo (7-inch single)
On first play through Dan Rico‘s “Flesh & Bone” 7-inch single, many listeners will likely be struck and dazzled by what they hear. They’ll be excited by the tone and tenor of both “Flesh & Bone” and its B-side, “Gold Volvo,” because both tracks sound tightly and classically composed, in the finest tradition of the…
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Beldam – Pasung
For all the sludge metal oozing outta Vancouver, you don’t really hear much of that stuff from its sister city. The bands I know from Seattle lean more toward the Neurosis style of heavy progressive metal. But these recently relocated Virginia transplants bring a whole bunch of that southern-fried piss ‘n vinegar to the Pacific…
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Preservation Hall Jazz Band – Run, Stop & Drop (The Needle) EP
It’s not common for a jazz album which was made in a recording studio to really reach out and grab a listener’s attention. Let’s be honest here; jazz was originally music which was born onstage and developed there with the help of gifted players who spent hours crafting it, grooming it, refining it and making…
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Genocide Pact – Order of Torment
Well what can I say, I had never heard of the Death Metal act Genocide Pact prior to the fine folks at Relapse Records sending me this gem of an album, and I’m super stoked they did. Order of Torment is due out on February 2nd on the aforementioned Relapse Records and it is a…
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Stuyedeyed / Birds – split 7-inch
It’s always kind of incredible how great a gamble a split 7-inch single release can be for the artists involved. Over the years, lots of bands have made great ones, yes, but there have been an equal or greater number of weak or soft efforts which feel lopsided because either one band or one song…
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Black Moth – Anatomical Venus
Often reviews of an album consist of ‘this sounds like band x’, the singer sounds like ‘singer y’, and ‘this album sounds like album z’. But this is not the case with Black Moth: they are special; they sound like Black Moth, no one else. This in itself is a mighty achievement.Their song-writing and performances are…
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Heave Blood and Die – Vol II
Now, based on the band name you’re probably thinking I’m about to review a grindcore outfit, or maybe an uber-kvlt black metal brigade. Well no, not even close—although they are from Norway. But their sound is far removed from the grim, frostbitten forest. Instead, they’re more akin to the Georgia prog-sludge of early Baroness or…
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NEEDLES//PINS – Good Night, Tomorrow LP
Such occurrences are rare but sometimes, all the tumblers just happen to align. A band doesn’t just produce the best damned music of their career, it also happens to get released in just the right place at the right time (and enough people just happen to be looking and listening just the right way) that…
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Blackwülf – Sinister Sides
You can tell Blackwülf is from Oakland right from the opening notes of this, their third album—the Bay Area quartet channels local legends like Sleep and Acid King in their stoner doom worship. Speaking of legends, Geof O’Keefe of Pentagram fame plays guest guitar on a cover of the proto-stoner Cream classic “Sunshine of Your…