Category: Reviews – Audio
Glorious metal in all its earthly forms, compressed onto shiny plastic discs or into digital files. Which ones will become the soundtrack to your life?
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At The Gates – At War With Reality
Comeback hype, buoyed by hazy, revisionist memory (and no little vain optimism) rarely bears fruit. That’s the well-established, seemingly legit, conventional wisdom in popular music. However, recent comeback stints from Autopsy and Obituary, alongside the relentless, entropy-defying longevity of acts like Vader that are only just now reaching full potential, have defiantly pushed the bloody…
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Autopsy – Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves
Autopsy is remarkably consistent. For the fourth time in as many years since reuniting, the Oakland band has released another full-length, the awkwardly titled Tourniquets, Hacksaws and Graves. Autopsy has now reached a point where post-reunion output nearly matches the initial catalogue in size, and it’s easy to forget they were absent for fourteen years.…
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Karkaos – Empire
I had not heard of the intriguingly named Karkaos before and this is a shame as they are a pretty decent band. Musically, the band are very adroit; they sound like a cross between Arch Enemy and Dimmu Borgir but with a twist of their own. What really gives them a strong identity of their…
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The Body / Sandworm split
I still have fond memories of the one and only time I’ve seen The Body live. The local promoter had a hard time finding a venue that would accommodate their awesome amplitude, and they ended up being double-booked with some indie-rock band at The Shop, a pre-fabricated Parkdale punk-rock dive. After the respective local openers…
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The Flaming Lips – With A Little Help From My Fwends
The problem with trying to critically review anything from The Beatles’ songbook is that many potential listeners are going to flay it apart as they listen very closely for flaws – any flaw at all. A lot of that has to do with The Beatles’ standing in pop culture and musical reputation; their songbook is…
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Kolony – Sledge
Review by Steve Earles Canada is like a metallic Cauldron (pun intentional!) at the moment, constantly spewing forth molten metal into the world. And now we have Kolony, who to my experienced ears sound like a collision between the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound beloved of Cauldron and Laugh At The Fakes, while…
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Tinkerbelles – Fine Asses EP
It has been a very, very long time since a new record forced my mind to expand so quickly that it made my eyes blur, but that’s exactly what Tinkerbelles‘ debut 7-inch – the Fine Asses EP – did to me. The first time I put it on and stylus touched vinyl, the record just…
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Viathyn – Cynosure
Once again, another self-release that would put a major label to shame, this is of the same quality as many a band on, for example, Nuclear Blast. The music is very heavy, but progressive, and very heartfelt, reminding me of folk music in its feel and atmosphere. The song-writing is superb, which is how it…
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Electric Würms – Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk
After a certain point in a band’s career, it must get difficult to summon the excitement of making music the same way they always have. Think about it – after a while, it must get hard to feel as though you’re pushing the creative envelope while also trying to appease your fan-base and not alienate…
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Atriarch – An Unending Pathway
Not too familiar with this Portland outfit, but Atriarch have been described as a head-on collision between post-sludge and new wave, which seemed intriguing enough for me to listen up. The fact that heavy-rock luminaries Billy Anderson and Brad Boatright had a hand in mixing and mastering is also a good sign; the production really…