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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Pink Floyd – The Early Years, 1967-1972, Cre/ation (2CD)
As every fan of the band knows, there have been three eras in the history of Pink Floyd: the first, Syd Barrett-fronted stoner-pop period, the second (epic) Roger Waters-fronted period (which gave us albums like Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Animals) and the final David Gilmour-fronted incarnation which…
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Green Day – Revolution Radio
It will probably sound strange to the legions of fans that Green Day has won in the years since the release of American Idiot (let’s be honest – the band now has some supporters who are too young to remember when Kerplunk! was released), but the first words which will cross the minds of fans…
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Demontage – Fire of Iniquity
Man, looking at some of the show flyers in Demontage’s press kit reminds me how long I’ve been hanging around the Toronto scene—and these guys have been around even longer. Fire of Iniquity marks the third album from the 15-year vets, coming a full six years after their last record, The Principal Extinction, which I…
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WARFATHER – The Grey Eminence
Skepticism and apprehension tug eyebrows upward any time a well-known band’s powerful, long-standing vocalist is replaced, regardless of genre. Steve Tucker is eternally a part of death metal’s fabric with his contribution to Morbid Angel, impressive on its own, much more so considering he replaced one of death metal’s greatest frontmen: David Vincent. Some purists…
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Craneium – Explore the Void
Well, it seems the Swedish stoner-rock sound has seeped across the sea to Finland. Craneium hails from Turku, and has been kicking around for five years now, although this is the first record of theirs to make it across the pond. It’s not hard to hear why — fans of the classic Lowrider/Truckfighters sound will…
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Solitude – Reach For The Sky
Japanese metallers Solitude are Toru Nishida (bass), Akira Sugiuchi (vocals), Takamasa “MAD” Ohuchi (drums) and Shingo Ida (guitars). This is Solitude’s third album following 2009’s Brave The Storm and 2001’s Virtual Image (all released in Japan on the splendidly named Spiritual Beast label). Reach For the Sky was mixed by Magnus Sedenberg who previously worked with the…
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Sithter – Chaotic Fiend
Now, Japan has produced some pretty solid stoner and death/doom bands over the years, from Coffins to Corrupted, Eternal Elysium to Chuch of Misery… not to mention Boris, who practically deserve their own category. But when it comes to straight-ahead Japanese sludge, I usually come up empty. So when I heard that Sithter, a band…
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Scum – Garden of Shadows
Bit of an interesting back story behind this one. This Finnish death/doom outfit formed in 1990, and was signed to the legendary Black Mark Productions, where they put out a couple records in ’94 and ’95. Garden of Shadows, recorded in ’96, was to be Scum‘s third album, but Quorthon reportedly tossed this demo in the…
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The Second Coming of Heavy Chapter IV: Red Mesa/Blue Snaggletooth split
Like I said when I reviewed Chapter 3 of this compilation, Ripple Music has become somewhat of a tastemaker in the stoner-rock scene, a modern-day Man’s Ruin or MeteorCity, if you will. And they’ve only built on that reputation in the past couple years, signing the likes of Wo Fat and Devil to Pay and…
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Soggy – self-titled
My introduction to Soggy came when I saw their frontman get up and jam with The Shrine at Pyscho Las Vegas. The Shrine covered Soggy’s 1981 single “Waiting for the War” a couple years back, so they went online to see if they could find the guy… and the rest is history. I had no…