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?

  • Skitliv – Skandinavisk Misantropi

    If Skandinavisk Misantropi translates to Scandinavain Misanthropy, does that mean that Skitliv has hatred towards their own kind, or does it portray the hatred Scandinavians have towards the human race in general? This album presents a number of considerably solemn questions as it evokes the feeling of grim dissatisfaction.

  • Bison BC – Dark Ages

    A lot of bands attempting to pull off the same thing simply wind up sounding too eclectic to get anything of substance across. But Dark Ages, varied though it is in influence, is still a focused and precise monster, and it’s likely to be another one of those records that will wind up on many…

  • Cancer Bats – Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones

    With a swinging and universally mean attack, Cancer Bats set fire to much of their own past as well as a significant number of the bands that would pretend to be their peers as they find the best possible middle ground between old school hardcore (like Black Flag) and Seventies/Eighties-era metal (think Judas Priest), and…

  • The Steve Morse Band—Out Standing in Their Field

    You won’t hear any misguided stabs at nü-metal or techno; only a trio of dudes and their respective endorsement deals doing what they do damn well, and having a good time at it (while concocting some of the corniest titles this side of a Skyclad album). The Steve Morse Band delivers flash with class.

  • Virulence – If This Isn’t a Dream… 1985-1989

    A pretty cool find from a band on the cusp of the post-hardcore movement—especially considering the direction its members went afterwards. I guess they didn’t start smoking reefer till they moved away from their parents…

  • Raven – Walk through Fire

    By Albert Mansour Receiving this new Raven CD I raised a worried eyebrow thinking that this was going to be one their Stay Hard or The Pack Is Back specials: that many things will probably be going wrong on this album. The trio has proved me wrong by possibly releasing one of their best albums…

  • DoomDogs – s/t

    DoomDogs is a fair solid slab of thud-rock. I’d go so far as to say that, from the opening bombardier riff of “Fight the Greed”, DoomDogs is a notch or two above a lot of doom records I’ve subjected myself to lately.

  • Impetuous Ritual – Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence

    Despite the fact that the album title reads as if Impetuous Ritual chose it using Death Metal Mad Libs, this album is anything but random in concept and performance. No, this soul-rending slab of doom-laced death metal is a calculated carnage machine of the first order. Tate Bengston reviews the new album by Portal side-project…

  • Ratt – Infestation

    I wasn’t expecting much from this album but am mildly impressed with a lot of the songwriting – full of huge hooks, great guitar work and of course Pearcy’s voice. Ratt brings back the classic sound of the 80s with great songwriting and great guitar solos but still for the most part inject some modern…

  • Tjolgtjar – Ikarikitomidun, Lord Of The Forest

    Do not expect anything hi-fi from this Illinois based one man band of a rare breed of music that barely reaches the tolerable low-fi standard due to production that is more raw than that of early records from Satyricon and Darkthrone.