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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The Basement Paintings – Mystic
The majority of the time RIYL lines baffle me as I tend not to hear the influence of most bands listed. Sometimes I just don’t hear it, sometimes I’m not trying to compare bands. However, in the case of The Basement Paintings and their Mystic album the RIYL line is bang on. ISIS, Tool, Pink…
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Graves at Sea – The Curse That Is
The first full-length from Graves at Sea isn’t just a long time coming, it’s a long time, period—eight tracks spanning 76 minutes! I guess that with just a handful of EPs and splits over the past several years, they finally got the chance to make the most of their studio time. The lineup here is…
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The Flaming Lips – Heady Nuggs, 1994-1997: 20 Years After Clouds Taste Metallic
As most fans know, The Flaming Lips had already gone through a few semi-seamless transitions by the time they were ready to begin making Clouds Taste Metallic. By then, they’d already been DIY Okie punks and goth-y pseudo rockers, and had even managed to sort of put together an arresting estimation of their first genuinely…
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Lord Mantis – NTW EP
With an infusion of new blood from now-defunct Chicago outfit Indian, you might be expecting something slightly sludgier from this Midwest blackened doom troop this time around. A new sound, after all, would justify the release of this four-song EP, which clocks in at just over 24 minutes. “SIG Safer” immediately signals that Lord Mantis isn’t…
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Psychedelic Witchcraft – The Vision
If the name Psychedelic Witchcraft conjures up images of a female-fronted occult-rock act that worships at the Coven of Jex Thoth and Blood Ceremony, then you’re pretty much right on the money. Rather than drawing inspiration from classic Italian cult horror films, like, say, their countrymen in Arcana 13, this Florence-based outfit has chosen not…
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Bardus – Stella Porta
When I think Philly, I don’t usually think noise rock, but French label Solar Flare Records, home to the likes of Sofy Major and The Great Sabatini, thinks highly enough of this young trio to offer them a deal—which is reason enough for me to give this a listen. Stella Porta comes crashing out of…
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Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner
This collaborative effort between the Swedish Neurosis [Cult of Luna] and New York noise rocker Julie Christmas appears to be a concept album about live on the high seas—a theme perhaps not unfamiliar to ISIS, another notable (though sadly long defunct) post-sludge outfit. With five tracks spanning nearly 55 minutes, tis a rather lengthy voyage.…
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Conan – Revengeance
Just caught this U.K. trio’s debut Toronto performance on the heels of Detroit’s Berserker Fest. Conan had been kicking around the British sludge scene for a few years before their breakout sophomore effort, 2014’s Blood Eagle on Napalm Records, and now, striking while the iron is hot, Revengeance comes out less than two years later.…
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Slavestate – Illicit Mandate
With some albums, my response is immediate. I push ‘play’, and I don’t even have to try. A band does something so right within the first seconds of the first song that I can’t help but approve. I know that I’m in for a treat because the band says, “Yesss, fuck all that bullshit, time…
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Zun – Burial Sunrise
Every scene has its unsung heroes. When it comes to desert rock, for every John Garcia, Brant Bjork and Scott Reeder, there are guys like Gary Arce and Mario Lalli, scene stalwarts that have received plenty of underground praise, if not much mainstream recognition. Let’s just say the type of people who buy Small Stone…