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?

  • Nevermore – The Obsidian Conspiracy

    The Obsidian Conspiracy had an almost insurmountable expectation being the follow up from TGE and both solo records, which were great. Nevermore fans will be disappointed with this new album however, as the record doesn’t really deviate from the Nevermore formula and some of the songs are just plain stale.

  • Necronomicon – The Return of the Witch

    The Return of the Witch is a solid piece of work. It’s an album that is upfront about what its intentions are.

  • Jex Thoth – Witness EP

    At only 15 minutes long the Witness EP is definitely a teaser, but the three songs show a pleasing attention to old-school songcraft.

  • Jon Oliva’s Pain – Festival

    Festival is not far removed from Savatage’s (likely) final album, Poets & Madmen. Inclined to a middling pace, the focus is on weighty, bludgeoning riffs wrapped in grandiosity and drama.

  • Avantasia – The Wicked Symphony

    The Wicked Symphony is exactly what you want from an Avantasia record. The production sounds huge, and clear, there isn’t a bum note in the playing, the songs are catchy as hell (I defy you to not sing along with “Dying For an Angel”) and the silly, tongue-in-cheekiness of the Edguy lyrics are left behind

  • Rush – Caravan / BU2B

    By Adrien Begrand It goes without saying that the summer of 2010 is going to be a big one for Rush. Not only are the Canadian greats hitting the road once again, playing corporate-sponsored sheds across North America, but they’ll be making the punters even happier by performing their 1981 masterpiece Moving Pictures in its…

  • Early Graves – Goner

    If you like it mean, fast, crusty and hammering, check out Goner, it’s a housewrecker of a disc.

  • Godsmack – The Oracle

    It has been a Godsmack trademark to toss out allusions to material that is more interesting and more ambitious than their commercial hits would seem to suggest. As The Oracle offers up its share of such material, it will be interesting to see where the band continues to take things from here.

  • Gamma Ray – To The Metal

    As this is essentially a workmanlike album from a workhorse band, it is hard to conjure much excitement for To The Metal. It commits few misdeeds. It offers even fewer triumphs.

  • Soulfly – Omen

    The thing about Omen is that it feels like Soulfly is running through the motions in a lot of ways. The clue to that lies (again) in the Jeffrey Dahmer referencing; the cannibal was arrested and tossed in the can in 1992. He died in ’94; this was the best the band could do?