FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Modestly experimental and incredibly grandiose by their standards, this double album (their first ever) clocks in at an ungodly 80-plus minutes, way more than it should but, hey, it’s Cathedral. You know the fuzz-pedals were particularly gritty one day and writing got out of hand.
This album shows the real Toronto metal scene is sparkling with some great new bands.
Like a ghost ship emerging from a heavy fog, Germany’s gothic duo have returned with an album that, despite some occasional flat attempts towards invoking a playfully dark atmosphere, is a fun record well worth a listen.
I hope that more people will find the time to check out We Are the Cult of the Plains, because after repeated listening, it’s totally grown on me – a fascinating, schizophrenic, Syd Barrett take on black metal.
Last Sunrise is an Epicus Doomicus Metallicus opus in every sense, faux Latin be damned. One can only assume that the two gun-toting lovers on the cover were driven to their suicide pact after repeated listens on a cold February nite.
Trilobeth doesn’t offer much of in terms of a focused style, but its seeming adaptability and multiplicity are its strengths. It’s a release that is a musical tribute to our technological and frenzied reality.
Playing a thrash, metalcore infused style, the music is fun, dirty, rocking and has your head nodding from the get go. The album is chock full of big sounding melodic passages that work very well and suck you right back into the moment.
Violence is somewhat reminiscent of the early Eyehategod demos gathered by Century Media on 2000’s 10 Years of Abuse…And Still Broke compilation, particularly in its transferred-from-cassette-tape sound quality
Combining world music sounds (steel drums, tubular bells, an orchestra, occasionally and a barge-load of goth-sounding synths) with giant and meticulously executed black/death/math metal guitars, Finntroll (literally, the translation is ‘Finn Troll,’ taken from an old Finnish folk legend) come off sounding like the most cinematic and archaic metal band of all time as songs like “Solsagan,” “Ett Norrkensdad” and “I Trädens Säng”bludgeon out a sound that is equal parts European folk, metal and industrial and all aggressive as hell.
The music world is filled with similar smoke and mirrors acts. We’re told over and over and over again that so-and-so’s new album is the one that’ll re-define the genre. How many times have you heard in the last couple years that this-and-that’s “stunning” comeback album is “highly anticipated” and their best yet? Better than Bonded by Blood? Not bloody likely! The lies haven’t stop piling up since the music industry released its ad campaign for Elvis’ second record and this month’s Rimshots lifts the veil, cuts through the crap and saves you some money and/or hard drive space.