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?

  • Emperor – Live Inferno

    Live Inferno is nothing less than a send-off from the canonical Norwegian black metal band.

  • Killing Time – Three Steps Back

    This 12-track affair is surprisingly progressive, unwittingly infusing a great deal of punk rock ‘n’ roll into their beastly Sick Of It All-influenced (as in, Three Steps Back feels like it could be a natural successor to Scratch The Surface) delivery.

  • Freedom Hawk – s/t

    By Gruesome Greg Freedom Hawk is a four-piece band from Tidewater, Virgina, presumably not far from the Doom Capital. That being said, they are a stoner rock band, through and through. They borrow from the masters (Kyuss, Nebula, etc) without being a band that “sounds too much like” anybody. Vocalist TR Morton obviously takes his…

  • Genitorturers: Blackheart Revolution

    By Melissa Andrews After listening to Blackheart Revolution I’m rather disappointed I didn’t make it to see them when they played lived in Toronto recently. It’s not a revolution but it’s fun and with songs named “Louder” and “Kabangin’ All Night” it promotes all sort of the standard metal indulgences. With the first single to…

  • Fear Factory – Mechanize

    It’s not clear at this point whether this new offering has enough unique staying power to ensure that, once the dust of its release has settled, its cuts will stand out from the rest of the band’s music. It’s a great listen for the first few times, but then it begins to feel a little…

  • Brainstorm – Memorial Roots

    Along with Matt Barlow, vocalist Andy Franck of Brainstorm is one of the more unique and better singers in the power metal genre and without him, Brainstorm’s sixth album Memorial Roots would have been just an average album at best.

  • Fu Manchu – Signs of Infinite Power

    Signs of Infinite Power is a brisk 35 minute ride, with all the classic Fu features: distorted guitars, heavy low end, Hill’s laid back vocals and simplistic, if a tad strange, lyrical compositions

  • Arsis – Starve for the Devil

    There will be some complaints that Starve for the Devil utilizes a more traditional rock/metal songwriting style, however, the riffs are still challenging and hook laden, and because the time changes are more restrained than before, the songs have an openness that lets you get into the riff and commence air guitaring.

  • Brutal Truth – Evolution In One Take:For Grindfreaks Only! Volume 2

    By Sean Palmerston After the success of their first For Grindfreaks Only! release in 2008 (for those unfamiliar it contains a late nineties set recorded live in the studio for a New Zealand radio program), Hellbound’s favourite THC-fueled grinders have decided to do it again, albeit with a slight twist second time around. While the…

  • Defiance: The Prophecy

    The good news if you’re a Defiance fan is The Prophecy is 100% Defiance and there should be no surprises or complaints. If you’re looking for aggression, innovation or even progression from the 80’s Bay Area thrash scene, The Prophecy will just to serve as a nostalgia piece.