Symphony X-Iconoclast
Definite top ten year end material.
Reviews – Audio
Crisis – Armed To The Teeth/Kick It Out
Crisis do have some early metal influences happening though the majority of what you’ll hear is hard rock driven material. The guitar owes as much to the 60’s British Invasion sound as it does NWOBHM, which is to say that it’s catchy but not exactly metal and not overly memorable either.
Novembers Doom – Aphotic
The word “aphotic” means lacking light, specifically outside of the range of sunlight, like the abyssal depths of the ocean floor. But there is light here, a strange, phosphorescent light — this album shines.
Amorphis – The Beginning Of Times
Ever since vocalist Tomi Joutsen joined the band four albums ago Amorphis has been on a consistent roll for the most part firing on all cylinders. Last album Skyforger was a huge hit on many of year end lists and is probably their best work yet. Now A Beginning of Times is good but maybe not up to the quality of there last three outings.
Suidakra – Book Of Dowth
Book of Dowth is a solid uniform testament of folk influenced melodic death metal for fans to feast upon.
Seven Sisters of Sleep – s/t
As a whole, this self-titled offering is short and sweet, eight tracks weighing in at 20 and a half minutes. Nothing special, but if you like slowcore, it’s worth a shot.
Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz (Legacy edition)
Listeners and long-time fans will be absolutely thrilled by this updated presentation of Blizzard Of Ozz because it does do a service to the songs – but the catch is that they have to make it by the re-treatment of “Crazy Train” to do it, and that may be a greater accomplishment than many might suspect.
In Solitude – The World.The Flesh.The Devil
It’s great seeing bands from our continent carrying the proverbial torch, but it seems these Swedes have an incredible knack for making themselves sound like they came from a 1983 Banzai Records compilation rather than 2011. When a band takes that vintage style and absolutely nails it, like Portrait, like Ghost, like Year of the Goat, like Helvetets Port, like Bullet, and in this particular case, like In Solitude, it’s enough to make any metal geezer over the age of 40 realize that there just might be hope for metal after all.
Demonaz – March of the Norse
Really catchy and melodic, the whole album has a nice flow and you can really bang your head to it. The production is very warm and sounds great cranked up loud.
Origin – Entity
Tech death fans, Entity‘s your feel-good hit of the summer.