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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Altarage – Nihl
After offering an explosive sample of ruinous devastation last year via their titanic 2-track demo MMXV, Spanish metal-of-death brutalists Altarage (apparently comprised of several incognito underground Spanish scene vets) return in 2016 to clearcut an unforgiving swath through the cluttered DM landscape with their cavernous debut LP, Nihl. Co-released across various physical and digital media…
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Boris with Merzbow – Gensho
OK, so here’s the deal with the new Boris/Merzbow album. It’s actually two records, but you’re supposed to play them at the same time—which is fine if you have two turntables or multiple CD players. For the purpose of this experiment, I’m listening to Boris in Windows’ Groove Music and Merzbow on iTunes. This may…
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Novallo – Novallo II
Novallo II is a new entry from the Columbus prog five piece Novallo. This short but sweet album wraps technical showmanship inside the bubble gum stylings of pop music. Novallo II is an eccentric progressive pop metal album that provides listeners a good entry point into more technical metal and fusion without being overwhelming. The…
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Dream Death – Dissemination
Dream Death’s 1987 debut Journey Into Mystery is one of the great lost metal classics of all time. On their debut album, this Pittsburgh outfit combined the nascent sub-genres of thrash and doom into a self-styled concoction called sludge metal—that’s right, they were the Possessed of all things tuned low and played slow. Problem is,…
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The Arrival of Satan – Passion Sodomy Terror
“when there is no more god, no more soul, no more hope, there is the obscenity of flesh, the anguish of death, the darkness of despair. then it gets totally fucked up. this is the arrival of satan.” While it may have taken Grenoble black metal outfit The Arrival of Satan (TAOS) six years to…
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Black Shape of Nexus – Carrier
This German sludge sextet returns with Carrier, their first full-length since 2012’s oppressive 80-minute effort Negative Black. This one’s considerably less lengthy, but equally punishing, with six tracks clocking in just shy of 50 minutes. “I Can’t Play It” opens the album on an ominous note with tortured screams and squealing feedback. This one’s a…
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Low Flying Hawks – Kofuku
After a while as a writer you come to rely on certain PR companies and labels to deliver the goods seemingly without question. In my case Sheltered Life PR and Magnetic Eye Records fall into that category. So when K0fuku by Low Flying Hawks landed in my inbox there was no hesitation as to whether…
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Wake – Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow
Writing about grindcore almost demands violent language: churn, blast, crush, ad nauseam. Descriptions follow a tried-and-tired vocabulary. You could fit Sowing the Seeds of a Worthless Tomorrow, the third full-length from Calgary grinders Wake, into that familiar mold. It would easily fit in some ways, but it wouldn’t exactly be accurate. I’m hedging against those…
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Church of Misery – And Then There Were None
I’ve always been a big fan of Church of Misery. Their last record, Thy Kingdom Scum, was one of my 2013 favourites, and I’m still bummed out that their Canadian tour dates got cancelled that year. (I blame Ted Cruz. No, really.) But hey, should they get together for some North American dates, the formerly…
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La Chinga – Free Wheelin’
Super stoked for the sophomore slice from these Vancouver-based bashers, who put out their stellar self-titled debut back in 2013. These retro-rock revivalists are kinda like the West Coast’s answer to Monster Truck…y’know, with better weed. Free Wheelin’ comes rolling outta the gate with “Gone Gypsy,” which sounds like early Aerosmith with some Robert Plant…