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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Blaak Heat – Shifting Mirrors
What do you get when you take an L.A. based French guitarist with Middle Eastern psychedelic influences and a seven-man backing band? You get Blaak Heat, the latest signing to Tee Pee Records. Shifting Mirrors sounds sorta like the last couple OM albums, if they were being covered by Tia Carrerra. The chill, oriental vibes…
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Sinistro – Semente
Sinistro is the second Portuguese outfit to hit my inbox in the past couple weeks, but they are two very different entities. Unlike Miss Lava, Sinistro is actually female-fronted, and their influences lean more heavily towards Neurosis than Kyuss. They also seem to sing in their mother tongue, judging by the song titles. Semente, their…
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Warsnake – self-titled
Back in the day, I used to be AF Analog’s biggest fan. The short-lived local sludge band was never a household name outside their own households, but in ’07/’08, they were the closest thing to Crowbar around this neck of the woods. Now a couple of those guys are in this new outfit, Warsnake, which…
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Rob Zombie – The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser
At first glance, one might assume that everything is just business as usual for Rob Zombie on his sixth solo studio album. Its title, The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, reads like a compilation of words pulled from the titles of his other albums and seems a little laughable and ridiculous, at…
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Short Cuts: Seven Recent Self-Released Albums That You Should Crank To 11
You know the drill (and if ya don’t, pay attention, hotshot): these days more than ever time is money, or relative, or something like that — hence the consolidated capsule review format, dig? Regardless, never loan money to relatives, or else time will be your only remaining (if fleeting) capital (in lieu of patience, and,…
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Iggy Pop – Post Pop Depression
I must confess that I could not bring myself to review Iggy Pop‘s newest album immediately upon its release for personal reasons. Those reasons stemmed from David Bowie and my appreciation for both artists’ music; Bowie and Iggy have shared an unusual, symbiotic relationship for decades (at least, they have in my mind) and, at…
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Boudain – Way of the Hoof
This Louisiana outfit is named after a spicy Cajun sausage, so they’ve already whetted my appetite before I even press play. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that they hail from a town four hours north of NOLA, home to so many great sludge bands. These guys have been grilling, erm, killing it since ’06, but…
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Mirrors for Psychic Warfare – self-titled
Both Scott Kelly and Sanford Parker are pretty much pioneers of post-sludge. Kelly needs no introduction from his time with Neurosis, while Parker has really established himself as a producer when not playing in Neurosis-inspired outfit Minsk. But their previous collaboration in Corrections House was far from the sludgy stuff… and so’s this one, for…
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Beastwars – The Death of All Things
When I reviewed Beastwars’ debut, I noted that they were “the heaviest thing to hit Godzone since the Big Sheep Shearer,” and I’m sticking by that statement. Although New Zealand isn’t necessarily known for sludge metal, there is a wave of extreme, avant-garde, underground metal bands from the Isle of Phil Rudd… and these guys…
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The Golden Grass – Coming Back Again
Album number two from this Brooklyn hippie-freak trio features six tracks of heavy psych grooves. We get started with “Get it Together,” a mellow, 70’s style ode to sunny ways that wouldn’t sound outta place on American Century, with a heavy chorus that recalls Foghat or Grand Funk. “Reflections in the Glass” has a more…