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?
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Green Druid – Ashen Blood
In a scene full of witches and wizards, sometimes it’s good to be a druid. These Denver doomsters may not stray too far from the beaten path (they do have a song called “Nightfall,” after all), but their crunchy doom tones still satisfy on their 74-minute(!) Earache Records debut. “Pale Blood Sky” kicks things off…
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Black Wizard – Livin’ Oblivion
Black Wizard’s last album, 2016’s New Waste, just narrowly missed our Hellbound Top 10 Canadian albums… and it’s probably my fault. I think I had it at Number 11 or 12 on my own list—not that there was anything wrong with it, just that there were a lot of great Canadian records released in 2016.…
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Atala – Labyrinth of Ashmedai
I really dug the second album from this California desert sludge outfit, which was produced by none other than Billy Anderson—and he’s back behind the dials for this one. With six tracks spanning just less than 36 minutes, ’tis not a lengthy listen, although Atala do manage to squeeze in a couple eight-minute epics. “Grains…
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Paradise Lost – Host
Paradise Lost really have mutated to survive over the years. With their debut Lost Paradise, they had a sound inspired by Autopsy, Celtic Frost and Black Sabbath, yet even there their own identity shone through. It was dark, and that would be the way for Paradise Lost to this day (a great name, all the great…
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Thy Kingdom Slum – A History of Dissent *CANADIAN*
Man, “Century” by Lodown was probably one of my most-played songs back when I was on CKLN. This catchy, groovy, heavy rock number had a few listeners asking me “Dude, who the heck was that?” But despite having such a killer track, the Windsor-based outfit didn’t get much respect—they always seemed to be playing the…
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Windhand / Satan’s Satyrs split
Although they offer very different takes on what you might file under doom, they’re both at the top of their game. Windhand and Satan’s Satyrs put on a great gig in Toronto while touring together last year, and now they’ve teamed up again on this 31-minute split EP. Although Windhand only gets two songs to…
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Fu Manchu – Clone of the Universe
Fu Manchu is practically the AC/DC of stoner rock, owing to their consistency and longevity. When these guys put out a new record, you pretty much know what you’re gonna get… and it’s gonna be groovy. Clone of the Universe is the 12th studio album from these long-running desert rockers, and it definitely delivers. The…
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Empress – Reminiscence
I told you Elder’s got a posse! A West Coast gig from our new stoner rock saviours inspired this here Vancouver trio to start kicking out their own respective jams, which has resulted in their five-song debut EP, Reminiscence. There’s two distinct types of tunes on Reminiscence—three sub-four-minute tracks, and then a pair of eight-plus…
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Against the Grain – Cheated Death
Detroit Rock City road warriors Against the Grain are back with their fourth full-length album, and they’ll surely be coming to your town to help you party it down in the very near future. But in the meantime, we’ve got these 12 tracks of Motor City speed rock to tide us over, 40 minutes at…
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Beldam – Pasung
For all the sludge metal oozing outta Vancouver, you don’t really hear much of that stuff from its sister city. The bands I know from Seattle lean more toward the Neurosis style of heavy progressive metal. But these recently relocated Virginia transplants bring a whole bunch of that southern-fried piss ‘n vinegar to the Pacific…